


Daughter of Time

by dragonashes



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Arranged Marriage, Bandits & Outlaws, Bigotry & Prejudice, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Mistaken Identity, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-01-28 06:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonashes/pseuds/dragonashes
Summary: "Truth is the daughter of time."Sans has been holding secrets for years, living a quiet life with his brother in Snowdin Forest.  Unfortunately for him, King Asgore has a mission that needs doing...and Sans is the best skeleton for the job.  He'll face bandits, meet familiar friends, walk a really long way, and maybe even rescue a princess or two.Unfortunately for him, secrets have a funny way of coming out.  One thing's certain: Sans will never be the same after this.





	1. Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by! A few notes before we get started:
> 
> \- This is set in medieval times...kind of. I've tried to keep things mostly historically accurate for late medieval Europe, but with magic (which throws everything off).  
> \- All characters speak in modern dialects. Some speak more formally than others, but no one speaks any variety of Old English. I don’t want to write that any more than my readers want to read it.  
> \- There will be a few terms throughout this story that may not be familiar, depending on how much you slept through your history class. Feel free to ask questions or ask Google; it's a fascinating period.

“BROTHER!”

Sans rolled over, willing himself back to sleep.

“BROTHER!”

It was early.  Really early.  The sun wasn’t even up.  Why was Papyrus so upset?

His door slammed open.  “BROTHER, GET DOWN HERE IMMEDIATELY!”

“k.”

“THAT MEANS NOW!”

“you said ‘down here.’  i’m right here with ya, bud.”

Instead of the usual banter, Sans found himself slung over his brother’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and hauled downstairs, still in his night shirt.

Undyne was standing in the kitchen, watching their shenanigans with clear amusement.  “Hey, Sans.  Rough morning?”

“ugh.”

“Well, I’ve got some bad news for you.  The king-”

“UNDYNE, THAT’S NOT HOW YOU DELIVER A MESSAGE!”

“...Really, Paps?”

“YOU HAVE TO DO IT PROPERLY!”  Papyrus was bouncing in place.

Undyne sighed, straightened, and stood at attention in front of Sans, who was propped up more by the kitchen table than his own two legs.  “Sans of Snowdin Forest, you have been summoned to appear before Asgore, King of Monsters, as soon as possible.  He has-”

“THAT MEANS YOU MUST LEAVE NOW, SANS!”

“Er, thanks, Papyrus.  King Asgore has a matter of grave importance to discuss with you that will impact the good of the kingdom.”  She relaxed a little.  “It’s...pretty formal, so  _ stars _ Sans please take this seriously.”

Sans sighed, slumping against the table a little more.  “k.”

“Alright, then, when can you leave?”

“now, i guess.”

Both Papyrus and Undyne looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“ugh.  fine.”

He shuffled back upstairs -  _ slowly _ \- and threw on some travel clothes while looking for his good ones.  He’d almost successfully forgotten that he  _ owned _ good clothes.  Some nobleman’s son had passed away a few years back and the boy’s clothing had been donated to any humans and monsters in the area who couldn’t afford such fine garments.  Embarrassingly, the richly dyed linen tunic and undertunic Papyrus had picked up fit Sans perfectly.  The hose had been altered significantly to fit his much skinnier legs, but they were still of good quality.

The shoes he’d made himself, leather tops on wooden soles.  A bit old-fashioned, maybe, but Papyrus liked the sounds of wooden shoes clomping around.  Sans thought for a moment.  He’d definitely heard rain earlier, so the road would be muddy.  His wool cloak and capuchon were by his bed; he pulled both on and shuffled back downstairs.

Undyne was eating a bowl of...whatever Papyrus had cooked up, face carefully neutral.  She looked a little too relieved when Sans appeared.  “Got your stuff?  Huh.  Looks pretty good; ready to go?”

“BUT HE HASN’T EATEN YET!”  Papyrus rapped his wooden spoon against the cooking pot he’d been stirring.

“Um.  Just...give him a normal dinner and he can eat that.”

Papyrus sighed, but packed a normal working dinner - brown bread and cheese, with a carefully-rationed amount of dried meat - in a cloth and handed it to his brother.  “BE SURE TO EAT HEALTHY WHILE YOU’RE HELPING THE KING!”

Sans took the meal gratefully.  “k.”

“AND DON’T FALL INTO YOUR EMBARRASSING HABITS!”

“k.”

“AND...TRY TO COME BACK SOON?  AND SAFELY?”

“aww, are you gonna miss me, bro?”

“HARDLY!  I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS - FUTURE ROYAL GUARDSMAN - HAVE MANY THINGS WITH WHICH TO OCCUPY MY TIME!  I DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR PRESENCE!  THAT SAID!  IF YOU DO NOT RETURN SAFELY, I WILL COME LOOKING FOR YOU!”

Sans wrapped his brother in a hug.  “thanks, bud.”

“YES!  WELL!  DO NOT BE LATE!”  Papyrus hugged him back anyways.  (Late for what, he didn’t clarify.)

Undyne had only brought one horse, so she hoisted Sans up in front of her like a child.  That was fine; Sans hated horses and horse travel and anything to do with the creatures in general.  Even with someone else holding onto him he bounced uncomfortably with each step.  By the time they stopped around midday to eat dinner and let the horse rest, he felt like he’d forgotten the feeling of solid ground.

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Undyne said, grinning at him as he staggered around.  “It’s not  _ that _ bad.  Not as great as swimming, but I don’t think you’d do to well in water.”

Fair enough.

They bounced their way over to New Home, the capital of the Monster Kingdom.  It was just as impressive as Sans remembered: a huge city built from stone, not wood, surrounded by a wall.  The city proper was built on a steep hill, rising above the surrounding fields, with olive groves and a winding road leading up to the gates.  It was one of the most well-defended places in the region; and after what had happened to Home, no one had disputed its necessity.

It was dusk by the time they rode into the city, and fully dark once they reached the castle.  The streets were crowded.  Undyne had to drop her horse off at a guard station or risk trampling the children who kept running back and forth, carrying messages or trying to get a better look at the gathered dignitaries.

“Can’t believe he sent me out  _ today,” _ she grumbled, one hand wrapped around one of Sans’s.  “Couldn’t have waited until tomorrow, oh no; had to be  _ today…” _

“uh, what - exactly - is it i’ll be doing?”

Undyne sent him a Look.  She’d arrived at his home before sunrise, which meant she’d been riding all the night before  _ and _ all day.  She was clearly at the end of her rope.

“fine, fine...just seemed like you knew what ol’ fluffybuns wanted with a humble little skeleton like me.”

“I disagree with his plan, for what it’s worth.  And stars, don’t call him that in front of the guests.”

“wait;  _ guests??” _

She huffed and dragged him around a corner.

They slipped in through a back entrance into the staff area.  The sounds of several dozen cooks echoed down one hallway, but Undyne swept them down another and towards a small washroom.

“Clean up,” she said.  “There’s a bucket of clean water and some cloths to get most of the road grime off of you.  Then change into your clean clothes.”

Sans did as he was asked.  His clothing probably looked shabby to the nobles who lived in New Home, but at least he wasn’t obviously a peasant.

Not that he technically was in the first place, but…

Undyne was scarfing down some stew from a trencher when he finally located her.  She’d tucked herself into the far corner of the staff dining room, and - bless her fishy heart - had even grabbed a trencher and a mug of ale for him as well.

“Eat up,” she mumbled between bites.  “I sent a page to let the king know that you’re here; you’ve gotta show up in the main dining hall whenever he’s ready for you.”

Sans did as she asked, putting away his stew as quickly as he could.  It was amazing, and not just because it contained meat instead of just vegetables; someone had gotten  _ spices _ from somewhere, and actually knew how to use salt.  He felt uncomfortably full by the time his trencher was empty, but he was tempted to pick at the soft bread of his trencher where the rich broth had been absorbed regardless.

“Sans the skeleton!  Sans the skeleton!”  A tiny human boy in a page’s tunic hurtled into the staff dining room at high speed.  Undyne caught him easily around the middle.  “Hey, wait-oh!”  Facing Sans head-on, realization sparked.  “Sans the skeleton!  The king is ready for you!”

“Great.  Sans, get ready.  You-” she put the boy down, straightening his tunic and hair.  “-get back to the dining hall.”

The boy nodded and ran off.

Undyne gave Sans a thorough once-over before pushing him in front of her down the hallway.  It was surprisingly bright, lit by magic instead of torches, and unusually wide to accommodate the guards and servants who were running back and forth at all hours of the day and night.  Sans felt small, being inside such a large building.

Finally they reached the doors of the great dining hall.  A pair of older pages opened the doors for them, and someone Sans couldn’t see announced, “Your Majesty, Captain Undyne of the Royal Guard returning with Sans of Snowdin Forest.”

There was a lull in conversation as everyone in the hall turned to look at the newcomers.  The king sat at the far end of the hall, presiding over the head table.  Flanking him were important members of the Kingdom of Monsters and some humans in strange clothing Sans couldn’t place.  Between the doors and the head table were three long tables, all full of humans and monsters of all shapes and sizes wearing colorful and elaborate clothing.  It was dizzying to look at, a riot of color that seemed almost loud in a strange way.

Undyne walked forward with only the briefest pause, helmet tucked under her arm and head held high.  The foreign humans watched her with undisguised curiosity, and did the usual double-take at seeing Sans.  He was glad he’d worn his capuchon; the hood covered his bare skull and neck, making his lack of hair and skin somewhat less apparent.

A few of the humans at the head table relaxed as he came into view, which worried him.  What were they expecting?  What did they have to do with whatever King Asgore wanted?  And what had been so important that the  _ Captain of the Guard _ had been sent to fetch him when she could have been overseeing security for visiting guests?

King Asgore smiled warmly.  “Thank you, Undyne, for undertaking such a long journey on such short notice.  Your loyalty and service are, as ever, an inspiration.  Please, take the rest of the evening off; I am sure we can manage until morning.”

Undyne nodded sharply, then turned and walked back out of the hall.  Sans stood in front of the head table, alone, feeling a bit awkward.  Everyone was still staring at him.  He hoped they saw what they wanted.

“Sans,” the king continued, “You have been summoned here to undertake a...unique and somewhat dangerous mission.  My friend,” he gestured to one of the foreign humans a few seats from him, “King Fendrel of Eastriver, has requested aid.  Fendrel, would you explain?”

The human, Fendrel, nodded.  “Thank you, King Asgore.  Sans of Snowdin Forest, I have come here seeking an enterprising young man to assist me with a rather delicate matter.

“I have ten daughters, all of whom are - in my unbiased opinion - very beautiful.”  A collective chuckle rose from the other guests.  “My forefathers had to fight to keep the Kingdom of Eastriver safe from our neighbors, to the detriment of all of us, and over time turned to warmongery.  Blessed with so many daughters, I have the opportunity to take a...different approach.”

Sans had no clue what this man was getting at.

“Three weeks ago, my youngest daughter - who was destined for the abbey, as is customary in my kingdom - requested that she be offered an...alternative.  I agreed, and one of her sisters who was drawn to a more contemplative life traveled to Middlefield Abbey in her stead.  Unfortunately, this youngest daughter of mine went missing not long after.  She has always been independent, but traveling alone in our kingdom would be downright foolhardy.  Additionally, I received strange conflicting reports, all supposedly from Middlefield Abbey, telling me that one or the other - or both - of my daughters have arrived safely, or injured, or not at all.

“The issue is that this abbey lies on holy ground.  No one who has waged war or shed blood - or dust - can enter without special permission.  I have come here seeking aid, and to make an offer: if someone pure of heart and mind can enter this holy ground and find what happened to my daughters, I will gladly give him my youngest daughter’s hand in marriage.”

King Asgore nodded.  “It would mean a great deal to both our kingdoms, to have such a marriage take place.  It would be a sign of peace.  We would have nothing more to fear from the Kingdom of Eastriver, and they - in turn - would have nothing to fear from us.”

Sans didn’t like where this was going.  He really, really didn’t.

“And,” the king continued, “Naturally, the family of the one who was able to accomplish such a feat would be elevated as well…”

“i’ll do it,” Sans said, without much more thought.

“Excellent!  Thank you for your service.  As you have had a long journey, we will offer you a room here in the castle and supplies for the journey.  You will set off with an experienced guide first thing in the morning.”

King Fendrel looked like he was going to protest, but held his peace.  Despite being no great lover of humans - and humans from Eastriver in particular - Sans felt a stab of pity for the man.  The fate of his daughters was clearly weighing heavily on him.

He held his (proverbial) tongue, though, and bowed to his king instead.

Sure enough, a page led him to a relatively comfortable room.  It was a little drafty, as castle rooms tended to be, but that was offset by the thick woven rugs on the walls and floor.  The bed was comfortable, too; he barely remembered to shuck off his nice clothes before collapsing on the bed and falling asleep.

“Psssssst!”

“paps, it’s gotta be early..”

“PSSSST!”

“the sun isn’t even up, bud…”

“Sans!”

That wasn’t Papyrus’s voice.

Sans opened his eye sockets to find a page standing next to his bed, a worried look on his face.  Oh, right; he was in the castle, getting ready to go find a girl and-

The implication of all that had been said the night before hit him.  He’d agreed to go find a girl and get married if he found her.  Sure, Papyrus would be taken care of for the rest of his life; would live the life he  _ should _ have lived, had their father not been killed in combat.  Asgore knew Papyrus, he’d take care of him.  Set him up with a nice house, probably in New Home, more convenient for guard training…

He really, really wanted to just go back to sleep and pretend this wasn’t happening.

“Sans?”

“sorry, pal.  gimme a second.”

“Alright!  I brought you travel clothes.  We’re finishing up packing your travel bag for you to inspect before you leave.  But Captain Undyne says for you to hurry.”

He nodded and the kid ran off.

The clothes were made of fine, undyed linen, and fitted him better than anything he’d ever worn.  He examined the slightly crooked stitching with no small amount of guilt; someone must have stayed up pretty late to make sure he had new clothes to wear.  It seemed like a waste to him - he was going to be traveling and probably get them dirty - but he wasn’t going to complain.

The waxed sailcloth travel pack that was deposited in his room shortly after contained his own clothes, another new linen tunic and undertunic, travelling food and water, a pair of leather shoes with thick soles, an orb of light magic, a metal tinderbox, and a few leather straps engraved with runes.  He put on the shoes and wrapped the straps around his wrist; they held spells that might be helpful, simple things like unlocking and dispelling illusion and camouflage.

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon when he made his way down to the main level of the castle, bag floating behind him carried by magic.  Undyne met him halfway there and repacked his bag, taking all his old clothing out.  “I’ll keep this in my room, you numbskull,” she hissed.  “Don’t  _ carry  _ it all with you.  Now get downstairs!”

He did as he was told, nearly tripping over his new shoes.

To his surprise, the king himself was waiting at the entrance to the staff dining room.  Sans made a hesitant bow, not sure what else to do, but was waved off.  “Please,” Asgore said, “We have never stood on ceremony.  Come, eat with me; I believe the kitchen is just taking bread out of the oven.”

This was true, as it turned out.  The various servants and pages didn’t pay much attention to the king, his royal bulk taking up a conspicuous amount of room at one of the communal tables, and instead gave him his food and his space.

The bread was good, too: proper wheat bread, not the dark rye stuff Sans was used to.  It seemed almost impossibly fluffy in his mouth.

“It is good, is it not?”  Asgore asked, an expression of bliss on his face.  “No matter how many rich dishes the kitchen serves, there is simply something about fresh bread that is...incomparable.”

Sans nodded.

“Now, I am sure that you have questions for me before you leave.  Please, feel free to ask whatever you wish.”

He had many questions, but the first one that came out was, “why me?”

“Well, I must admit, we did not have many choices.  This is a rescue mission, which requires strength; it also involves a place of no small enchantment against those with violent pasts.  Oh, exceptions could be made - and are, during certain times of the year - but this requires haste and discretion.  With so much known about the situation, it would be better to simply send in one or two individuals who have the power and intelligence to assess the situation and - if necessary - rescue the young lady in question.  You were the first person who came to mind.”

“so...why not someone from eastriver?”

If Asgore noticed the hostility in Sans’s tone, he made no comment.  “Eastriver, as you know, has been at odds with all its neighbors - including us - for generations.  Most young men and women who display physical promise have been traditionally funneled into the military.  Those who escape such a fate are often drafted into gangs of brigands or street thugs, and see more violence than many trained soldiers.  Besides, this is a gesture of goodwill and trust; even a tenth daughter is beloved to her father.”

“and you believe him?”

“Sans…”  The king put his bread to the side, resting both massive paws over Sans’s clenched fists.  “I know you are angry.  When I think about what the people of that place have done to us - What Fendrel’s own  _ father _ did to us, leveling Home and killing so, so many good monsters and humans alike - it makes me  _ furious. _  But now is not the time for fury.  Now is the time for peace.”

“what?”

“Sans-”

“how can you  _ say that? _  how can you ask me to be a part of this, after what that-that  _ bastard _ did to us?  to my father?”

Asgore looked down, then back up.  His expression steeled, going from friend to king in a moment.  “I understand why you are upset, Sans, but we cannot change the past.  Your father knew what he was up against when he stood at my side that day.  He was a brilliant innovator, a loyal soldier, and a kind citizen; we are all the poorer for his absence.  But  _ he _ chose to risk his life, to give his children a chance to grow up.

“Consider that, when you rail against your own fate.”

He returned to his bread, giving Sans some space.  The skeleton’s body burned with fury.  He didn’t want to acknowledge the truth to the king’s words, to admit what he’d known all along: that given the choice, his father would have still gone into battle against the attacking Eastriver army even knowing how it would end.

Eventually, he climbed back on the bench and took the bread roll his king offered.  He nibbled it carefully, feeling full again already.

“i...i can’t do what you’re asking,” he whispered.  “i have blood on my hands, remember?”

“No.  You don’t.”

Sans looked up, a thick feeling in his soul.

“I know the truth of the incident you’re referring to, Sans.  I did not say anything at the time, out of respect for your grief and your brother’s well-being, but I know what happened.”

“how…?”

“Someone else, someone sworn to secrecy, happened upon the scene.  Do not concern yourself with who it is; I will take that secret to the grave if I must.  But know that I have it on good authority that your own hands are clean.  Unless you have something else you are hiding?”

Sans let the soft magic of the CHECK wash over him without fighting it.  He knew what the king saw; it was the reason he usually manipulated his stats when he felt others trying to CHECK him.

“Sans…”

“it’s fine.  so, i’m supposed to find this girl, get her home safely, and...what, get married?”

“Something like that.  Here.”  He slid a sealed piece of parchment across the table and waited while Sans tucked it away in his pack.  “That will gain you entrance to the abbey.  You and your guide will be traveling in the guise of pilgrims; I am well aware of your aversion to horses.  Regarding the marriage, I have spoken to the girl’s father; if you or the girl object too strenuously we will not force the issue.  We do hope you can come to an agreement, however.  I understand how difficult arranged marriages can be, but they are not all terrible.”

Sans nodded, picking apart the last of his roll.

After breaking their fast, both king and subject made their way to the castle courtyard.  A young human man with wheat-blonde hair was standing there impatiently.  “Rupert,” Asgore said, approaching the human, “I have brought your traveling companion.  This is Sans of Snowdin Forest; Sans, this is Rupert Oakheart.”

Rupert nodded, still twitching.

“well, thanks, king asgore.  i guess we’ll be o-ooof!”  Sans was lifted in the air by a pair of scarred blue arms.

“YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU’D GET AWAY WITH NOT SAYING GOOD-BYE TO ME, DID YOU??”

“bye, undyne.”

“PAH!”  She turned to Rupert, who looked terrified at this development.  “YOU’D BETTER BRING THIS BAG OF BONES BACK IN ONE PIECE, YOU HEAR ME?”

The human nodded.

Sighing, Sans led the way out the castle gates.  It was a pleasant day, nice and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky.

“So,” Rupert said, “I...I thought I was just a guide?  Just showing you the way to Middlefield Abbey?”

“yup.”

“Th-then why did the captain…?”

“she’s just aggressive like that.  she’s known my family for a long time; she tends to get a little...protective of people she likes.”

“O-oh.”

They walked in silence a while longer.

“Um.  If you don’t mind me asking...who is it we’re trying to find?”

“the king of eastriver’s daughter.  or daughters.”

“Oh.  Gosh, didn’t they attack us ten or fifteen years back?”

“yup.”

“And we’re…”

“helping them?  seems so.  gotta play nice with the new king, i guess; then when he stabs us in the back we can’t say we didn’t try.”

“I...I see.  I hope it lasts.”

Sans had given up on hope a long time ago.

“What’s her name?”

“huh?”

“The princess.  What’s her name?”

“oh.  it’s...i...don’t actually know.”

“What?  Then how will you know when you’ve found her??  Do you know what she looks like, at least?”

“slow down, bud.  i’ve seen her dad; she can’t look too different.  besides, some monsters can sense family ties; i’m one of those people.  we’ll be fine.”

“I see.  If you say so.”

Sans had no idea what he was doing.

Three days later, he still didn’t.  Rupert, at least, knew the way to the Abbey, avoiding the major roads where bandits were known to lurk; all Sans could do was concentrate really hard and try to sense any traces of familial magic.  It was a complex process, especially since he’d only met one of the girls’ parents and had never met any other member of their family, but it was better than nothing.

Oh, who was he kidding?  He was grasping at straws.

“Anything?”  Rupert asked, warming his hands on the fire.

“nope.”

“Oh.  Sorry to hear it.  Then we’re sticking to the original plan?”

“unless something changes in the next day or so, yeah.”

They were about a day’s travel from the abbey.  The plan was to spend a day or two there to rest and investigate what letters - if any - had been sent by the nuns there, then either investigate the abbey further or continue their search elsewhere, depending on what they found.

“It makes me nervous, being so close to the border.  Will they really just let us through?”

“the abbey’s on neutral ground.  even during the war, it wasn’t touched.  holy ground, remember?”

“Right.”

“are you sure you’ve been there before?”

“I know the way!  I’ve just never been  _ to _ the abbey before.  It...makes me feel strange.”

“oh?”

“I know it’s not really proper to say, but...I don’t know.  It makes me feel like all the wrong things I’ve ever done are weighing on me.  I mean, I’m not a  _ really  _ bad person - a bandit or highwayman or anything - but it’s still uncomfortable.”

“fair enough.  we all have things we wish we hadn’t done.”

Now that Rupert brought it up, though, Sans could easily identify was making him feel off.  That description of it was rather accurate, actually; it was a heavy feeling with an edge of itchiness, like something was tickling the inside of his skull.  He tugged on his capuchon absent-mindedly.

“I don’t feel good about camping here.  I’ve camped here a hundred times, but it feels like there’s something foul in the air tonight.”

“bandits?”

“No.  They shouldn’t be this far south-”

Rupert never got to finish that sentence, or any other.  It - and his life - were cut short by the shaft of a wooden arrow, red and glinting in his throat.

Sans jumped up, but it was too late.  Rupert clutched at the arrow on instinct, but they both knew he wouldn’t make it.  He mouthed a word - run? - at Sans and fell over.

The skeleton’s mind raced.  There was no time.  He barely dodged a second arrow coming from a slightly different direction.  He was surrounded; he had to  _ go- _

He paused for barely a moment, grabbing both his and Rupert’s bags, and called on a power he hadn’t used in a long, long time.  Stepping sideways, he reappeared elsewhere.

Using a shortcut without knowing where it led him was risky, but staying in that clearing with bandits was certain death.  He looked around.  He was still in the forest, and - judging by the position of the moon - not too far from where he’d been.  Maybe.  Maybe not?  He had no way of getting back to the road, no way of knowing he was even headed in the right direction.  He-

He had to get up into a tree, because there were  _ definitely  _ noises coming his way.

Sans was not a climber.  He wasn’t good at any kind of physical exercise, actually.  Thankfully, fear of being discovered by bandits worked wonders.  The tree he’d tackled was an old one, with thick branches and a comforting blanket of leaves.  He pulled himself up as high as he could and stopped to listen, praying that nothing came his way.

There was a rustle that was probably wind through the treetops, but he couldn’t be sure.  The crunch of something...or was that his imagination?  He listened harder and didn’t hear that sound again.  The call of some night bird interrupted him, making him jump, and his mind raced as he tried to tell whether anyone had seen that.

It didn’t look like it, to his inexperienced eye.

Slowly, carefully, he relaxed.  Both packs were hung on the short stump of a nearby branch that had been broken off.  He settled himself as best he could, given the circumstances, and thought hard.

Rupert was dead.  Sans had only seen a human die before once, and it didn’t seem like the experience got any less horrifying the second time around.  The first time, at least, he’d been happy to see the man die; there had been a moment of satisfaction that came with revenge, almost overshadowing the weeks and months and years of guilt that followed when he dwelt on his part in the man’s death.  Rupert, though...Rupert had been a friend, of sorts.  Friendly enough, at least, for all his awkward nervousness.

And now he was dead.  Shot in the back by bandits.  What a way to go.

It was a long night, up in that tree, listening to every rustle and peep in the cold dark.  As high up as he was, Sans could just barely see the stars above him through an opening in the leaves near the top of the tree.  They were spinning away, just as they always did, hardly caring for peasants or bandits or kings or lost princesses.

So...why should he?

Asgore would understand.  He’d always had a soft spot for Papyrus and - by extension - Sans.  He wouldn’t punish Sans for such a failure, especially for a situation outside his control.  Heck, maybe he’d even get a reward for alerting the kingdom to bandits; Rupert had said bandits weren’t expected in that area before his - somewhat ironic - death.

Sans decided to wait it out.  It wasn’t like he could do much stuck in a tree, anyways.  Without knowing where he was it was a near-impossible task to get back to New Home.  Maybe he could find a road or an outpost or something?

When the sun finally rose, he nearly cried tears of relief.  He was so, so tired.  If he could just find a safe place to rest he felt like he could sleep forever.

But he couldn’t.  He had stay awake and aware.  He’d promised Papyrus that he’d come home safely, and he had no intention of breaking that promise.

He had to stay awake.  He had to…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sans, we're one chapter in and you've already lost your traveling buddy. How are you supposed to adventure now?
> 
> Goodness. Poor Rupert; we hardly knew ye.
> 
> Some brief notes:  
> \- A capuchon is a hood-like cap. If you've seen pictures of medieval peasants, you've probably seen one. Sans dresses like a medieval peasant, and he's adorable.  
> \- A trencher is a large piece of stale bread that was used as a plate. Plates weren't really a thing most people used.  
> \- Pages were warriors-in-training. They did chores and ran errands around the castle to earn their keep while learning manners, chivalry, and generally how things worked.  
> \- I’ve committed a huge anachronism by putting female guards and bandits in the story. While medieval women were badass, and could darn well defend their homes if necessary (with children on their hips, no less), the men were typically the ones sent off to die in the front lines. There are some notable exceptions - warrior noblewomen and queens’ guards, Norse shieldwomen and British sword dancers - and they were generally considered to be more terrifying than their male counterparts because they had suppressed their motherly instincts.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. I'll be back in a few days with another chapter. Here's a short preview:
>
>> “I...I guess you could call me Walker.”
>> 
>> “walker? really? you could pick any name you wanted, and you chose _walker.”_
>> 
>> ‘Walker’ huffed indignantly. “Alright then, what do _you_ want to be called?”
>> 
>> “lord fartsbottom.”
>> 
>> “I am _not_ going to call you ‘Lord Fartsbottom.’”


	2. Autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans finds a new traveling buddy, and contemplates the possibility that this one will last a bit longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a brief recap of our story thus far.
> 
> Asgore: Sans, go rescue a princess. We'll have a wedding when you get back. And take this awkward human with you.  
> Sans: uh...  
> Rupert, the awkward human: *dies*
> 
> Now, on with the adventure!

The rustling of something nearby woke him up.  His first thought was that it was a miracle he hadn’t fallen right out of the tree.  His second was, _is that a human?_

It was a human.  A human boy - maybe a teenager? - had climbed up onto a nearby branch and was rifling through Rupert’s pack.  When the kid noticed that he was being watched, he gave a _very_ high-pitched squeak and fell off his branch.

It was instinctual for Sans to reach out with magic and catch the kid, even though the extra weight that transferred through the connection to his arm nearly unseated him as well.  He grabbed the branch beneath him to steady himself, then slowly brought the kid up to eye socket level.  He was hanging upside down, short brown hair swinging wildly, and his face was slowly turning red.

“so.  what’s a kid like you doin’ all alone around here?”

“I’m not a kid!”

That...was not a boy’s voice.

“sorry; what’s a fine and proper young lady doin’ out here, then?”

“M-me da was jus’, um…”

“don’t even try that with me.  if you can’t keep the accent up, don’t try it.”

“Ugh!  Just let me down!  I’m sorry I was going through your bag, okay?  I didn’t realize you were a monster!”

Right.  Humans had skeletons inside them, too.  She’d probably thought he was a dead human, perched in a tree.   Somehow.  “fair enough.  but that doesn’t answer my question.”

The girl hung there, face red, with a very stubborn look on her face.  It almost covered up how scared she looked.  Sans felt a little guilty.

“fine, fine.  not my business if you ran away from home.”  He slowly lowered her down to the branch she’d been on, being careful of her head.  “but why were you goin’ through my bag in the first place?”

“I…” She blushed when her stomach growled.  “I was hungry,” she said, with the air of a noblewoman granting a favor.

“sounds like it.”  Rupert didn’t need his food anymore, did he?  “tell ya what.  which way’re you heading?”

“Um...back towards the border if I can manage it.”

He stiffened.  “you’re from eastriver?”

“I...have family there.  It’s...complicated.”

“that look on your face...you wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”

“I’m not!  I _do_ have family there, and it _is_ a complicated situation, and I ca-I don’t want to talk about it.  It’s just...I...I’ve been out on my own before, I know how to take care of myself, but...I just want to go _home.”_

“heh.  that makes two of us.”  He dug a roll and some cheese from Rupert’s pack and passed it over, along with a jug of ale.  He grabbed the same from his own bag.  “so do you have a name?”

The girl hesitated.

“fine, fine.  what do you want to be called, then?”

“I...I guess you could call me Walker.”

Sans snorted into his ale.  “walker?  really?  you could pick any name you wanted, and you chose _walker.”_

‘Walker’ huffed indignantly.  “Alright then, what do _you_ want to be called?”

“lord fartsbottom.”

“I am _not_ going to call you ‘Lord Fartsbottom.’”

“but my lady, ‘tis who i am.  i’m but a humble lord, lost from his retinue-”

“Stop it!”  She was laughing so hard she nearly fell out of the tree.  “You’re no lord, sir!”

“fine, fine.”  He stuck a hand out.  “the name’s sans.  sans the skeleton of snowdin forest.”

Walker shook it.  “It’s an honor to meet you, Sans of Snowdin Forest.”

“same, walker of nowhere.  here’s my proposal.  i’m trying to get to middlefield abbey, and it sounds like you’re heading in the same direction.  problem is, my guide was killed in a bandit attack last night and i have no clue where i am.  it looks like you’re traveling without supplies; if you’re willing to show me the way to the abbey, i’ll let you keep the spare supplies.”

Her eyes went wide.  “You would do that?  Trust me not to lead you off a cliff?”

“i am reasonably certain there aren’t any cliffs nearby.”

“Fair enough.  Still…” She nibbled her cheese for a moment, thinking, then presented her hand.  “You have a deal, Sans of Snowdin Forest.”

They finished their meal and carefully climbed out of the tree.  Walker was certainly more agile than Sans was, but had the unfortunate tendency to overestimate her capabilities.  He had to catch her twice to avoid losing a second guide.

Thankfully, her navigational skills were a bit more refined than her climbing ability.  “I came from the road,” she explained.  “It’s right back this way.  A day’s walk from there should take us to Middlefield Abbey, right on the border between the Kingdom of Monsters and the Kingdom of Eastriver.”

“and you didn’t see bandits while you were on the road?”

“Well, they do tend to travel in this area, from what I hear.  We’re quite a ways from the nearest hideout that I know of; perhaps they’ve recently established a new one?  That would be chancy for them; we’re very close to the abbey, which has its own protections, and your king is notorious for keeping the peace on his lands without discrimination.  Perhaps they were going after pilgrims?”

Walker chattered on in a soft voice, occasionally glancing up towards the treetops and correcting her course.  It was a welcome relief from the awkward silence of travel with Rupert (bless his soul), and the time passed quickly.

The little bits Walker let slip also confirmed some of Sans’s suspicions.  The girl - young woman, actually; she was fully grown for a human - was one of many children in her family.  Her brothers were all involved in either the military or managing her father’s property (her father was wealthy, either a nobleman or a merchant) and most had children of their own, while her sisters were married.  She was, she confessed with some embarrassment, a bit older than the usual marrying age.

“really?  you look pretty young to me, no offense.  you humans marry really young, though.”

She blushed.  “I’m seventeen.”

“what?  really?”

“I know.  I get that a lot.”  Despite her embarrassment, everything Sans could read from her face led him to believe that she was telling the truth.

Still, humans tended to get married _really_ young, compared to monsters.  Whereas monsters would get married around sixteen or eighteen, sometimes older depending on the type of monster, the legal age for humans was - as best he could recall, from gossip around Snowdin - twelve for girls and fourteen for boys.  Whoever Walker’s father was, he must have been making quite a bit of money to be able to support so many daughters for so long.

Still, it was clear that her age was a source of some pain for Walker, so he didn’t protest when she changed the topic.

“And what about you?  I’ve been talking about myself all this time; who are you?”

“well, i’m a humble skeleton.  me and my brother have a house and a little bit of land on the outskirts of snowdin forest, not too far from snowdin town.”

“Where is that?”

“not quite a day’s ride from new home, our capital.  it’s a small place - not like new home or waterfall town - but everyone’s friendly.”

“You get along well with your local lord, then?”

It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about.  “oh, the kingdom of monsters works a bit differently than most human areas.  we swear fealty to our king, not a local lord.  there are nobles, but instead of each noble owning part of the kingdom and the people on it, they pretty much just own their own houses and fields.  they get their wealth from helping the king: some are military generals, others are organizers who make sure the different parts of the kingdom are protected and producing food as expected so we don’t all starve.  we pretty much work like one big fief instead of a bunch of small ones.”

“How strange!  Well, compared to were I come from.  And is it true that you let humans live here?”

“yep.  we’ve had humans living here for...gosh, a few hundred years?  almost as long as we’ve been a kingdom.  some of the nobles are humans, even.”

“Wow.”  There was a wistful look on Walker’s face, and she was quiet for several minutes.  “Oh, I’m sorry; I interrupted you.  You were telling me about yourself.  You said you have a brother?”

Sans grinned.  He could talk about his brother all day; this woman didn’t even know what she’d gotten herself into.

Halfway through telling her about that time Papyrus had been trying to cook some new recipe and had nearly burnt their house down, he heard a noise.

“What-”

“shh.”

He pulled Walker behind a bush and motioned for her to stay still.  Something felt uncomfortably tight against the bones of his arm.  Right, the leather talismans he’d been given as part of his travel kit.  It took a few moments’ concentration, but he activated the camouflage spell; hopefully between that and the bush they’d be pretty well hidden.

A group of about twenty filthy, smelly people dressed in dark mottled rags appeared around a bend in the road.  They looked like a rough crowd: mostly human men, but with a few human women and a few male and female monsters throughout.  They looked happy, like poor travelers who were enjoying the safety of the road on their day off, but a few glints of coin and flashes of fine cloth under the rags made Sans suspicious.  Looking closer, he saw the telltale outlines of weapons under most of the tunics.

Bandits.

He reached back and grabbed Walker’s shoulder when he felt her shift.  There was no way he could take on so many opponents, even if he’d kept up with his battle training, and he was sure that his pretty high-born companion had never actually stabbed anything with that hunting knife she was trying to hide from him.  They had to be still and _not make a sound,_ because he wasn’t sure he was lucky enough to take another blind shortcut.

The bandits passed their hideout without looking around.  There was a particularly tense moment when a feline monster started sniffing the air suspiciously, but she eventually shrugged it off and continued on her way, snarling something that made the man next to her scratch his butt and sniff his hand, frowning.

Past Sans and Walker’s hiding place, the road continued straight for about two miles.  It took the better part of an hour for the last bandits to finally disappear, laughing and shoving each other.  By then both travelers were shaking from stress and fear and - in Sans’s case, at least - exhaustion.

“well,” he said when they dared to uncurl themselves, “i guess i know what way we’re _not_ going.”

“Are you crazy?  If...if we don’t follow the road, how will we know where we are?  And there’s more than one group of bandits; what if we walk straight into a bandit camp or something?”

“calm down, pal.  let me see...i’m really off track, but isn’t there a trail around here somewhere that leads towards home?  i’m pretty sure we can detour out that way and come at the abbey from another angle.  probably.”

“Home?  Aren’t we pretty far away from your home?”

Despite the tension, Sans had to laugh.  “no, no; not _my_ home, _home._  the city.  our kings tend to be...how can i put it nicely.  they’re really bad at naming things.  like, _really_ bad.  they called the first city we founded in this area ‘home,’ and it became our capital over time.  when home was destroyed about 15 years ago, king asgore moved the capital to a more defensible location and called it ‘new home.’”

“Oh.  I always wondered about that.  It...makes sense, I guess, in a weird way.”

“yeah.”  He tried to think back.  He’d been pretty young when Home had been destroyed, but he still remembered some of the roads.  “let’s cut through the woods just up ahead.  let me know if you think something’s following us.”

He led the way, following alongside the road for a ways before setting off deeper into the woods.  He remembered this area, now.  He and Papyrus had played around here quite a few times when they were kids, pretending to be soldiers and hunting for mushrooms and medicinal herbs.  That shortcut the evening before must have taken him quite a bit farther than he’d originally thought.

Walker fidgeted nervously but followed him without complaint.  Sans didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was going off faint memories.  What if he was wrong?  What if he wasn’t actually where he thought he was?  He was no traveler; he didn’t know the roads or where the bandits set up camp.  What if-

Through a break in the trees, he caught a glimpse of something grey and brown.  Could that be…?

The ruins of Home stood before them, grey and crooked like old bones.  Between the initial attack and folks scavenging for building supplies and time itself, few of the houses were still standing.  Sans could make out the remains of the church tower, once a prominent landmark in the city, but the building it had once been connected to had been reduced to a low wall and a scattered pile of stones.

“Should we...walk through?”  Walker asked.  “It seems almost wrong, like a graveyard.”

Right; humans had their own ideas about death and burial.  “we probably have to.  it’s getting dark; maybe we can hide out in one of the buildings that’re still standing.”

“But what if there are bandits?  We can’t be the only people to know about this place.”

“oh, did you want to spend the night in the woods?  out in the open?”

“...No…”

He bit his proverbial tongue.  He was tired - _really_ tired - and it wasn’t Walker’s fault.

They made their way through the empty streets, looking for a house that was still mostly intact.  Sans deliberately didn’t look for his own home.  He didn’t want to remember where it was.

“Look!  Sans, up ahead!”

A single house stood proudly on a hill the edge of town.  It had a slate roof instead of a straw one - probably some rich man’s house - and it looked to be in pretty good condition.

“i have a bad feeling about this.  look; wasn’t that a light?”

“Maybe it’s someone friendly!”

“walker-”

“Please?  I’ve been walking all day, and I can see you’re tired too.  Can’t we try?”

“weren’t you the one worried about bandits?”

“If there were bandits there, wouldn’t they also be in town?”

“maybe, maybe not.  i’m not a bandit; i don’t know how they work.”

“Please?  Can’t we try?”

Sans looked at the girl.  She really did look tired, and he knew with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t be able to go another night without sleep.

“fine.  but stay close to me.  if this person doesn’t follow the laws of hospitality, i can try to get us out.”  Assuming he still had the magical reserves for it.

“Thank you, thank you!”  She practically skipped down the street.

It was dark by the time Sans knocked on the huge door, balancing his orb of light magic in his free hand.  He thought for a moment that whoever was living there was ignoring them, but then he heard the sound of shuffling slowly growing closer.  He put an arm out, forcing Walker away from the door.

The door opened with an ominous creak, revealing…

...Asgore??

No, this person was missing the big horns.  Still, how many large, fluffy, white goat monsters could there be in one kingdom?

“Hello!”  The person said.  The voice was much higher than Asgore’s, too.  “It is not often that I get visitors around here.  Why, you must be travelers!  Please, come in!”

Sans and Walker shared a look, then slowly crept inside.  The building was dark, lit by candles, and had an eerie air to it.

“This way!  I have food; I can easily make more.  Oh!  What are your names?  I am Toriel of the Ruins, or at least that is what I call myself.”

“i’m sans of snowdin forest, and this is walker.”

“Walker?”

Walker shrugged.

“Oh, you poor child!”  She gestured them into chairs at a very large table and set out a basket of bread rolls.  They were still warm.  “And where are you going?”

“middlefield abbey.  we saw some bandits on the road and were hoping to go around them.”

Toriel tisked.  “If you are going to Middlefield Abbey you are a terribly lost, Sans of Snowdin Forest.  The only road that goes that way takes a day and a half of travel and runs out by Waterfall Town.  Where did you come from?”

“uh, new home.”

“Goodness, you must have gone right past the abbey!”

“yeah.  i had some trouble with bandits and got lost.  if it wasn’t for walker here, i’d be lost still.”

“I see.  Well, it is certainly convenient that the two of you found each other, then.  Here; have some cheese.  I am out of stew, but that should be enough for supper.

“So, Walker, are you a pilgrim as well or are you dedicating yourself to the religious life?”

Walker swallowed her huge bite of bread and cheese.  “Oh, I’m continuing on past it, actually.  I have family in Eastriver.”

“I see.”  Toriel’s voice became strained.  “And you are...going to live with them?”

“For a while, at least.  They may have a marriage arranged for me.”

That was news to Sans.

The large monster hummed.  “Well, this is about as close to a traveling house as you are likely to find around here.  I can spare some beds if you have some coin-”

Sans pulled a few silver pennies from his pack and slid them across the table, trying to cover for Walker’s uncomfortable twitching.  “will this be enough, toriel?”

“Oh!  More than plenty!  I shall refill your water and travel packs as well, and make sure the house is nice and warm for your little human toes, Walker.”  She whisked the coins into her apron.  “Just let me know when you’re ready to sleep and I shall show you the guest room.”

The “guest room” looked like it had once been the dining hall of the home: a long room with straw beds laid out in rows.  As promised, a cheerful fire blazed away in the large fireplace along the far wall, offsetting the autumn chill.  Walker made her way over to the nearest bed, let Rupert’s pack fall to the floor with a jangle, and collapsed.  “I’m going to sleep _forever,”_ she announced.

“sure thing.”

“I really, really am.”

“sure you won’t miss your family?”

“Ugh.”

He chuckled.  “sleep well then, walker.”

“You too, Sans.”  She sounded half asleep already.

He considered changing into a nightshirt, but with a woman - a _human_ woman - so closeby, it didn’t feel right to be so exposed.  Besides, he didn’t think he could keep his eye sockets open that long.  With a sigh of relief, he followed Walker’s example.

 

* * *

 

He’d been hunting the human for days.  It had taken to long to even get to that point - sleepless nights spent pouring over maps, day after day trying to find soldiers who had witnessed his father’s death - but he’d finally found the scumbag.  He’d found the human who had killed his father.

Dragging Papyrus along was an unfortunate side effect.  Their father’s house was empty; he hadn’t been willing to demand that the servants stay behind when Home started to evacuate.  There was no one to watch the kid.  No one but him.

And he had a job to do.

The Eastriver army had broken up once Asgore killed their king, making their way back to their own fetid swamp of a country in fractured pieces.  He’d passed a dozen corpses in the past few days, frozen into the snow from lack of shelter.  It had become a game with Papyrus to sneak around the ‘sleeping’ corpses, trying not to disturb them.  They’d almost come a bit too close to one that was being eaten by wolves, and he’d been more careful after that.

Humans were disgusting, all meat and hatred.  Papyrus didn’t need to see that.

A low moan from up ahead called his attention.  Had the murderer finally stopped running?  Was this hunt finally going to be over?

He called up a bone and gestured for his brother to stay put.  Something told him to check - to _make sure_ that the kid stayed - but he brushed it aside.  He was going to get his revenge, and then they could go _home._

The human was hunched over in the snow, panting and shaking.  He resolutely steeled himself against pity.  This would be a kinder death than freezing slowly, anyways.  He raised up a cage of bones around the human; there would be no escape this time.

One step, two, three.  He bent over as close as he could to the human and whispered, “i’m going to kill you now.  do you know why?”

Instead of a response, the human jerked upright and swung around, knife out, its arm easily fitting between the bones of the cage.  He barely got out of the way in time to avoid losing his head, skipping back several steps.  The bones he threw at the human all missed; the human - fuelled by a desire to live - dodged too fast.  He almost didn’t see the single bone coming up behind him until it pierced the human clean through the chest.  It vanished after a moment, but the damage had been done.  The human collapsed.

“Sans!  Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond.  Neither did the human.  How…?  What…?

“Oh!  Were you fighting the human, too?  Why is it sleeping now?”

“stay back.”

He didn’t want to see.  He didn’t want _Papyrus_ to see.  Did the little guy even know what he’d done?

“Can we go home now?  I’m cold.”

He had to see.  He had to know.  He dissolved the bones of the cage and approached the fallen body.  Slowly, he nudged the human onto its back and found-

-and found Walker’s face staring back up at him, eyes wide and lifeless.  Over her, in the distance, Home was burning.

 

* * *

 

Sans bolted upright, breathing hard.  That was...unfortunate.  He tried desperately to clear his mind.  Hopefully he hadn’t yelled.  Waking up Walker or Toriel would lead to questions he really didn’t want to answer.

Maybe he could just...step outside briefly?  It was still night; no one would see him, probably.

The front door squeaked a little, which made him tense, but it wasn’t too bad.  He was pretty sure he’d gotten away without notifying the other inhabitants of the house.

He pulled back his capuchon.  Cool night air flooded his skull, helping him wake up and think a little more clearly.  What had that dream been about?  He hadn’t dreamed about _that_ incident in...years.  Of course, he hadn’t had much contact with humans in years, too.  First Rupert, then Walker…

It seemed like a terribly ill omen to be dreaming about his traveling companion’s death, especially after what happened to Rupert, but it was almost comforting for Sans.  He didn’t know Walker very well, and he strongly suspected that she really was from Eastriver despite her word games.  One less human in the world wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?

“Oh!  There you are!”  The subject of his thoughts tiptoed out of the house and made her way over to sit beside him.  “I was worried something had happened to you, but you just came out here.  It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

He looked up.  The stars looked like the bright jewels he’d seen fine ladies wear, clear and twinkling.  “yeah.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a night so pretty, or if I did I don’t remember it.  It seems a shame, that the nights are so beautiful when we’re all asleep.  Why do you suppose that is?”

“i guess it’s because the sun’s not out.  the stars are up there all along; we just can’t see them when it’s so bright out.  if the sun didn’t rise, it would look like this all the time.”

“What an odd thought!  I’d heard that theory - that the stars don’t really rise and set - but is it true?  Do you know?”

“it’s true.  there was an eclipse of the sun about fifty years ago, and the astronomers were able to study the stars during the day.”

“How fascinating!  I had no idea!  But you know a lot about it, Sans.”

He shrugged off the phantom smell of parchment paper and candle wax.  “someone i knew was interested in it.  a long time ago.”

“Oh?  Do they have many astronomers in Snowdin Town?”

“heh.  nah, that’s about as small a town as you can imagine.  nope; i, uh, used to live here in home before it was destroyed.  there was a library just outside of town maintained by some monks, and we used to go pretty often.  i guess most of it was destroyed, unless someone managed to grab it before the h...uh, the invaders burned the abbey.”

Walker was staring at him.  “You lived in _Home?_  You can _read??”_

“don’t look so surprised.  i’m a skeleton of many talents.”

“Well.  Obviously so.”  She hesitated.  “Are you really a lord, then?  I laughed at you when you said, but-”

“pft.  no, no.  my, uh.  my dad was on the verge of becoming one - he was a general during the war with eastriver - but he was killed.”

“Oh.  Sans, I...I’m so sorry.”

“not your fault.  you were just a little kid when that happened.”

“Still.  Even if it isn’t my fault, I’m sorry you had to go through that.  That sounds awful.”

She was quiet for a long while, leaning back in the grass and looking up at the stars.

“I never knew my mother.  My father says that when I was just a baby, a monster broke into the castle and killed her.  I...I’ve been afraid of monsters my whole life.”

Sans glanced over at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.  Her hands were balled into fists and her teeth were worrying her lip.  “hey, walker, why are you all the way out here, anyways?  it doesn’t make sense.”  Why would someone afraid of monsters be in the middle of monster territory?  Unease crept into his chest.

“I...I can’t say.  I’m sorry.  And, well...I think if you knew, you’d try to kill me too.”

“what do you mean, ‘kill you too?’”

“When I...when I first, um, set off on my own, I came across a few monsters.  I was really scared and I asked them for help, but they...attacked me.  They didn’t even ask who I was or where I was from; they just attacked me.  I barely managed to get away.

“Eventually I found a few humans who let me spend the night.  I borrowed some clothes from them - boy’s clothes, so I wouldn’t be walking around looking like a lady - and tried to get home.  If...if I’d thought for a moment that you were, well, a monster, I wouldn’t have climbed up into your tree, no matter how hungry I was.

“I’m glad, though, despite everything.  You’re a good person to talk to.”

“heh.  i’m glad you think so.”

“You are!  You let me ramble on my life and what I like and some of my embarrassing family issues, and you told me about your brother.  I can tell that he’s very special to you.  That means a lot.”  She finally looked at him.  “Thank you.  I think I would’ve gone crazy if I’d had to walk all the way back to Eastriver alone.  I definitely would’ve run right into that group of bandits, and...and who knows wh-what would have happened then.”

“it’s nothing.”  He shifted uncomfortably.  Had he really saved Walker?  He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but he’d just assumed that he and she were in it together and acted accordingly.  He’d never thought that she might give away their position or abandon him or stab him in the back.  He’d never thought about doing the same to her, either.

“It’s really not!  I wish...well.”

“what?”

“This is probably going to sound really weird to say, but...I hope the guy I’m supposed to marry is as nice as you are.”

He stared at her.

“See, I knew it would be weird, and I opened my big mouth...I’m sorry.”

“no, no; what did you mean by _that?”_

“Ugh.”  She breathed deeply through the hands covering her face.  “I know it happens all the time, but I’m really, really nervous about getting married.   _Really_ nervous.  I grew up thinking that I’d never get married; my father was going to dedicate me to the religious life.  But...he never got around to it, I guess.  And now my family’s arranged for me to get married instead.  I’m surprised they found anyone.”

“really?”  Walker wasn’t bad-looking, to Sans at least.  “why not?”

“Well...I’m older than most girls are when they get married, like I said earlier.  All my sisters were at least betrothed by my age, even though they didn’t all go through with it.  Besides, there’s a rumor that I’m...not normal.”

“what kind of not normal?”

“So...soon after I was born, I got very sick.  My mother thought I was going to die.  Then she was...killed, and I got better all of a sudden.  People said that I was some kind of changeling: a fairy or, well, a monster left behind in place of a human child.  That I was waiting to kill my family.

“Maybe that’s why I was never taken to an abbey; they probably didn’t want me there.”

It wasn’t apparent as she spoke, but the moonlight reflected the trails of tears down her cheeks.  They looked strangely beautiful, like tracks of silver on the sides of her face.

“walker…”

“Hah!  Sorry; it’s fine.  It’s fine.”

It obviously wasn’t fine.

Sans felt torn.  On the one hand, this was a human from the one place he hated most in the whole world.  She was mysterious, she was obviously withholding important pieces of information, and he wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t involved in something very shady.  On the other, he’d always had a weakness for tears.

Slowly, he shifted over and put a hand on her shoulder.  “look.  i’m sure everything’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?”

“you...seem like a very nice young woman.  i’m sure any guy’d be lucky to have you.  who cares about some rumors?  you seem completely human to me, and you must have been very resourceful to make it this far alone.  you’re intelligent and clever.  you’re not bad to look at, if you don’t mind me saying.  you’re kind and friendly.  if this guy is halfway decent, i’m sure you’ll get along with him just fine.”

Walker sniffled a little, but nodded.  “Okay.  Thanks, Sans.”

“it’s fine.  and hey, if you’re really opposed to the idea of getting married, i can drop you off at the abbey.”

She laughed.  “Thanks, but I think I’m a bit too wild for religious life.  I can barely sit still as it is.”

They laid there for a bit, looking up at the stars.  Sans was starting to feel sleepy again.  He was just about to go inside, when-

“So are you really on a pilgrimage?”

“huh?”

“I guess I just assumed.  You’re dressed like a pilgrim.  Are you really on a pilgrimage to the abbey?  Sorry if it’s rude to ask, but usually pilgrims travel in groups for protection…”

“it’s fine.”  He thought for a moment.  Could he really trust her?  “i...have something i’m looking for, actually.”

“Oh.  I’m so sorry.  What did you lose?”

“it’s not mine; the king sent me on this...quest, i guess you could call it.  heh.  i can’t tell if he actually wants me to succeed or not.  he knows i’m usually a pretty lazy guy; he could have sent someone - anyone - else and probably gotten a better result.  ...why are you looking at me like that?”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself, Sans.  I think you can find whatever it was your king wanted you to find.  You think I’m clever, but I’m pretty sure that you’re brilliant.”

She said it so plainly, like it was a simple fact, that he couldn’t help but blush.  “pft.  what gave you _that_ idea?”

“You know about the stars.  You can _read._  And when you told me about your brother, you included lots of little details - what _he_ was thinking or feeling, things you really couldn’t have known without being very observant.

“The way you look at the world is...different.  Like you see more than is really there, like a philosopher or an astronomer.  I can’t really describe it.”  She shrugged.

It wasn’t helping with Sans’s blush.

“Well...now that I’ve embarrassed myself enough, I’m gonna go back to bed.  Are you going to stay out here much longer?”

“a...a bit…”

“Okay.”  She slipped back into the house, closing the door softly behind her.

Maybe...maybe he would miss her if she died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well, Sans. It appears that you have upgraded in the traveling buddy department, hmm?
> 
> Also, it seems that _someone_ could use a little more self-honesty.
> 
> A few brief notes:  
> \- Remember how I mentioned that Sans is dressed like a peasant? Peasants weren't generally literate. There were few reasons for a peasant to learn to read, after all; their lives revolved around manual labor, and books were copied by hand and very expensive. Walker is justified in her surprise that Sans can read.  
> \- In medieval times, the meals were called: “breakfast” (a morning meal to ‘break’ the ‘fast’ - i.e. the period of not eating - that took place every night); “dinner” (a midday meal, what we might call “lunch”) and “supper” (an evening meal). Today, we use “dinner” and “supper” synonymously to mean an evening meal. I used the medieval names of the meals to keep the historical accuracy, so keep in mind that the characters will eat “dinner” and “supper” but never “lunch.”
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed! Thanks especially to everyone who left comments on the last chapter; they mean more than I can express.
> 
> Next time on _Daughter of Time:_
>
>> “Oh! That’s amazing! Is that something all monsters can do?”
>> 
>> “most of us. some humans as well.”
>> 
>> “Humans can have _magic?”_


	3. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walker lives up to her name. No, really, there's a lot of walking.
> 
> And interesting scenery and heartfelt conversation, but mostly walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our story thus far:
> 
> Asgore: Sans, go rescue a princess and marry her.
> 
> Bandits: Not if we have anything to say about it!
> 
> Walker: I am so lost. Can I come too?
> 
> Toriel: Welcome to my house!
> 
> Sans: ?????

“My child, surely you are still tired!  Please, stay for dinner, or at least have some tea.  And, well, I suppose, if you  _ decided _ to stay for supper as well I would not be opposed…”

Sans grinned at Walker around Toriel’s back.  The goat monster had taken a liking to Walker, it seemed, and had been trying to convince her to stay for a while longer.  Maybe a  _ long _ while longer.

“Marriage,” Toriel said, with the air of one who had lived through more than most people, “Can be...beneficial, at times, but it really is nothing but a nuisance.  You said that your family has so very many children; surely they can spare you!  And Eastriver is just so...so  _ far.” _

“I thank you, Toriel, for your hospitality, but I  _ really _ need to be heading home now.”

It would have worried Sans a good deal less if he hadn’t seen the flashes of frustration in Toriel’s eyes.  As it was, he was trying to figure out how quickly he could maneuver closer to Walker without either insulting Toriel or making her suspicious.  She had been shifting every time he did, keeping herself between the two travelers.

“well, time to go.”

His words drew Toriel’s attention with a start.  It was almost like she’d forgotten he was there.  “O-oh, yes.  Of course.  You two...are traveling together.  You will be safe.  I would feel a lot better if there was a larger group, but if you have made it this far…”  She hummed disapprovingly, but held out the dinner she’d packed.  “Here you are.  Food for the road.  And...Walker, if you change your mind and need a place to stay…”

“I’ll let you know,” Walker said, giving the older monster a hug.

She was unusually quiet when they departed, and Sans wasn’t entirely sure what to do.  He wasn’t even sure if the behavior  _ was _ unusual; he’d only known her for a day.

“are...you alright?”

“Hmm?  Oh, just thinking.  Sorry.”

“heh.  don’t apologize for that.  you just looked…”

She hummed.  “It’s just...I never considered  _ not _ going back to my family.  I love them dearly, but the idea of having other options never occurred to me.  Is it common for monsters to open their homes to strangers?”

“not really, but something tells me that toriel isn’t exactly a common monster.”

“True.  I thought she was going to attack me there at the end.  I hate to speak ill of someone who was so generous to us, but she seemed to act a little...strangely.”

“she’s probably alone most of the time.  sure, some groups might come through the area, but this isn’t a well-traveled area.  monsters aren’t meant to live alone; it does things to your head.”

“Oh.  That’s so sad.”

Following the directions Toriel had given them, they made it out to a main road without issues around dinnertime.  It was delicious: in addition to the usual traveler’s fare of bread and cheese, she had packed tiny fruit tarts in some kind of flaky shell that made Walker squeal with delight.  Her joy was contagious enough that Sans offered her the rest of his.

“I couldn’t possibly-”

“sure you could.  i really don’t have the stomach for them, anyways.”

She looked at him aghast for a moment, unsure whether to laugh or be appalled.  “Did...did you just…”

“yep.  what’s the point of being a skeleton if you can’t make jokes about it?”

Watching Walker collapse onto her side in laughter was the highlight of his afternoon.

They arrived in Waterfall Town just as the last lingering rays of sunset disappeared over the mountains.  The entrance to the town would have been rather hard to see if it wasn’t for the magical torches that led the way into the face of the cliff.

Sans nearly jumped when Walker edged closer to him, the trailing tips of her fingers brushing his sleeve.  “you okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t speak.

He examined her face closely.  “don’t like going into the mountain, huh.”

“It just feels very...crowded.  Like the walls are going to crush me.”

“they won’t.  this place has been around almost as long as home, a lot longer than most human cities.”

“I  _ know _ that, but...it doesn’t change the fact that I keep expecting the ceiling to cave in.”  Her fingers bumped his arm a little harder, and she flinched and wrapped her arms around herself.  “Sorry.  I know it’s silly.”

“it’s...a little silly, yeah, but understandable.  here.”  He held out a hand.

“Um…?”

“hold my hand if you’re worried.”  He was grateful for the darkness; he was sure he was blushing.  “if it gets really bad, let me know.  i know a shortcut back outside.”

She hesitated, then slowly reached a hand out towards his.  Her human fingers were softer and warmer than his, and a little damp from sweat.  The sweat part was a bit uncomfortable but it felt nice otherwise.

“You’re glowing a little, did you know?”

_ Stupid magic. _  “yeah.  uh, sorry…”

“No, no; it’s just that I didn’t notice it before.  Were you doing it last night?”

“maybe a little?  i’m not sure.  it’s one of those natural things.”  They were still in the tunnels leading up to the town proper, so there were no pools of water for him to check his face in.  He tried to regulate his emotions.  “better?”

“Oh, you don’t have to  _ stop _ glowing if you don’t want to.  It’s actually a little nice.  It’s very dark in here.”

Right; human night vision wasn’t the best.  “here, then.”  His light magic sphere was in his travel pack, so he lifted his free hand and produced his own ball of magic, tinted slightly blue, and let it hover a few feet in front of them.

“Oh!  That’s amazing!  Is that something all monsters can do?”

“most of us.  some humans as well.”

“Humans can have  _ magic?” _

Something in her voice put him on edge.  The way she said it sounded...forced, like she was trying to be more surprised than she actually was.  He put that thought aside.  Magic wasn’t very accepted in some human areas.  “sure.  lots around here do.  i dunno if it’s because they’ve lived near us for so long, or if it’s natural, but there’s lots of different types of magic humans can learn.  light magic is a useful one, so it’s taught frequently.  let’s see...barrier magic is another one.”

“Barrier magic?”

“it’s...kind of like a shield, but made of magic.  anything can leave, but only the people the caster designates can enter.”

“That sounds terribly useful.”

“it sure is.  most towns like this one have barrier casters in case of an attack.”  And maybe he shouldn’t go giving that information to a human from Eastriver who could very well use that information against them.

It was hard to keep that in mind when she just looked so  _ fascinated. _  “Are there other types of human magic?”

“let’s see...i know there are some humans near snowdin that use fire magic.  some can heal.  and...there are  _ lots _ of different types of combat magic.”

“...Oh.  That’s…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, because at that moment they rounded the final bend of the tunnel and got their first glimpse of Waterfall Town.

The cavern in which the town sat was almost entirely dark.  The only light came from the magic lanterns hung along the walkways and outside homes and shops, at least after sunset; Sans knew that there were several rows of tall, thin windows along the outside of the cliff face that brought sunlight in during the day.

The light twinkled off the surface of a small lake.  It was an offshoot of the river that flowed through the cavern, and formed most of the streets.  Most of the buildings had two, three, or even four stories; there were docks outside each bottom door, loosely tethered to rise and fall with the water level, and wooden walkways connected most of the upper floors.  Humans and monsters crowded the walkways, dressed warmly to fend off the chill of the cavern, so used to the darkness that nightfall was almost irrelevant.  It was certainly a unique place.

“It’s  _ beautiful,” _ Walker breathed.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“not many places would need to be built this way.  the people who live here have made it work.”

Strangely, Walker’s choice of clothing didn’t stand out very much.  Because the city was built in tiers, both men and women wore leggings for modesty and warmth.  Some of the wealthier women also wore trains or half-skirts that billowed behind them when they walked, but which could be easily tucked into a belt for boat travel.

And there were  _ many _ boats.  Most of them were narrow - the channels that formed the streets wouldn’t allow for anything too large - and darted back and forth like dragonflies.  A few water-type monsters popped up from below the surface, shook out their clothes, and walked into a store, laughing with each other.

Sans found that he had to guide Walker by their joined hands.  She was too caught up in the sights to actually navigate properly; he was afraid that if he released her hand she would walk right off a pier.  She was tolerable - for a human - and he felt responsible for her, so he towed her along with him.

There was an inn near the edge of town that looked promising, so he ducked inside.

“Looks empty,” Walker said, after a moment.  The low, bluish light of the magical lamp didn’t reveal anyone.  “Maybe we can try someplace else?”

She turned to go, bumping into some kind of large doll made of stuff cloth.

“HEY!” said the doll.  “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, SMELLY HUMAN!  DON’T GET YOUR HUMAN FILTH ON ME!”

“hey, bud.  why don’t you keep it down, hmm?”  The swell of anger on Walker’s behalf was sudden and unexpected.

“OH?  YOU’RE TRAVELING TOGETHER, HMM?  A HUMAN AND A MONSTER??  WAIT, AREN’T YOU THE- HMMMPH!”

The doll flew into the air like something had grabbed it around the middle, making inarticulate sounds of protest.  A moment later, a ghost-type monster appeared next to it.

“...oh, guests...and you had to listen to my cousin’s rudeness...oh…”

“It’s okay,” Walker said.

“...you probably want to go somewhere else...i sure wouldn’t want to stay someplace where people are rude to me...even though we have empty rooms...actually all our rooms are empty…”

The ghost had started to sink into the floor.  His attempts at bringing the doll - his cousin? - with him failed, since the doll was a physical object.  It started protesting louder.

“We’ll stay here.”

Sans, already halfway out the door, whipped around.  “wait, what?”

“Sans, I think we should stay here.  I have some coins in here...somewhere…”

The ghost reappeared, slowly.  “...oh...you want to stay here...even though it’s messy...and the floor hasn’t been swept...and the beds aren’t made…”

“Um…?”

“...i didn’t think so…”

Sans left the ghosts to their moaning and dragged her out of the shop.  “sorry,” he said.  “ghosts can get a little...caught up in themselves sometimes.”

“It’s alright.  That happens to the best of us, I guess.  Um, you don’t suppose there’s another inn around here?”

“there’s a sign further down that looks like...oh, no.”

“What?  Oh, what is that?  It’s so cute?”

“that’s a temmie.”

“A Temmie?  How adorable!”

“...we might be better off with the ghosts.”

But it was too late: the Temmie had spotted them.  It hopped up to them, it's big black eyes sparkling with excitement.

“hOI!  i’M tEMMIE!!!!!”

Walker bent down over the creature.  “I’m Walker!  Nice to meet you!”

“You’s looking fr nice place 2 stay?  Foob??  EXCITES?????”

“...Well, two of those things...”

“GUD!  Follow Tem!  Come!  Come!”

Thankfully, the woman had enough sense to hesitate and look back at her companion instead of blindly following the Temmie down the walkway.

Sans sighed.  “if you really want to stay there, then...fine.  but don’t eat anything they give you, and don’t let them corner you alone.”

“Are they really that bad?”

“no, just...annoying.  and a little ruthless.  don’t give them any money; i’ll pay for everything.”

“Okay.  Um, thanks.”

“you’re welcome, but really this is the only way to keep us from going into debt.  you don’t want to be in debt with the temmies.”

She looked a little nervous, but slowly followed the Temmie.

The inn was built the same as the other houses - a square, stone brick structure - but whereas the surrounding buildings were painted in muted shades of blue and green and ruddy brown, this one was orange.  Bright, glowing orange.

“Wow, that’s…”

“don’t ask.  just don’t.”

She nodded and ducked inside.

The Temmies were lined up, ears and tails wagging excitedly.  There was faint, foreign-sounding music playing from somewhere Sans couldn’t place.  “hOI!!” shouted the one behind what looked like a tavern bar, but covered in dolls and colorful scraps of fabric.  “Welcome to...TEM INN!”

“hOI!!!!!” the other Temmies chimed in.

“we’ll take two beds for the night.  just two beds.  no food.”

“Hrm…”  The Temmie looked Sans over with a critical eye.  “N0pe!”

“okay.  we’ll go somewhere else, then.”

“Noooo!!1!  Haf to stay  _ here! _  Buy tem flakes!”

“nope.  just the beds.”

“Then buy...majik potion!!”

“that looks pretty, but we just need two beds for the night.”

“U fite?  Want tem armr?”

“no, just the beds.”

The Temmie’s eyes narrowed.  The music stopped.  “Fine.  But watch yourself, skeleton.”

Sans suppressed a shudder and carefully counted coins.  He couldn’t tell if the scribbled sign said “3” silver coins or “8,” but he wasn’t willing to ask.  He erred on the side of more, wincing at the dent it put in his purse.

Walker stumbled behind him as he made his way through the doorway marked “B3DZ!!!” with a picture of a bed, and up a flight of stairs.  A Temmie directed them into a common sleeping area on the second level.  The beds were stuffed with some kind of soft spongy plant instead of straw; they smelled a bit earthy, but were surprisingly soft.

She collapsed onto hers the moment he released her hand.  “That was  _ terrifying! _  What happened back there?”

“temmies.  it’s been a while since i’ve dealt with them, but they have quite the reputation.  they really, really like selling things.  and buying things.  you get the idea.”

“Wow.  They look so cute!  And they’re clearly talented, but…”

“yeah.  it’s a slippery slope, though.  if they can get you to buy one thing, they can get you to buy another, and another…”

“Wow.”  She laid there for a moment before her stomach growled.  In the light from his magic sphere he could clearly see her blushing.  “Um.  Sorry.”

“heh.  hungry?”

“I guess so.  I think we still have travel rations…”

“yeah, but we’ll need those tomorrow.  let’s go find someplace proper to eat.”

“I don’t want to go past the Temmies again…”

“don’t worry.  stick with me and they won’t bother you.”

He held her hand, took a step, and appeared on a nearby roof.  A startled monster that looked like a giant, goopy drop of water jumped back with a warbling shout, but slunk away when nothing further happened.

Walker was staring at him when he turned.  “What...was that?”

“hmm?  oh, that?  that’s just a shortcut.”

“A...shortcut?”

“yup.  a quicker way between two spots.  don’t overthink it.  c’mon; let’s go find supper.”

She was slower to take his hand, as if afraid he was going to pull her through another shortcut; he was tempted to crack a joke but she seemed genuinely afraid.

They made their way across the bridge that led from the roof to the upper story of a nearby building, then followed the waterway for a while.  It looked like the district they were in catered to travelers; there were merchant shops, a few inns (all of which declared “NO VACANCY”), and small stalls offering repairs for shoes, carts, boats, and everything in between.  People were still coming and going just as frequently as they had earlier in the evening; the darkness outside didn’t seem to bother Waterfall very much.

There was a particularly shady man standing on a small dock in front of an unconnected three-story building.  Sans recognized it as the mercenary guildhall.  Most folks had the coin and common sense to hire their own guards, but mercenaries offered an alternative for the destitute or unprepared merchant.  They also escorted townsfolk who wanted to visit other places; being a merchant hub, Waterfall Town drew people from surprisingly far away, and those people often wanted to visit their families who had remained behind.

On the other side of the guildhall was a place Sans remembered fondly.  “look, there’s a tavern.”

“Is it?  It looks pretty dark…”

“i remember this place.  trust me; it’s good.”

“Okay…”

They made their way over to the building and down to water level, where a heavy wooden door stood open.  They ducked inside as a group of laughing, half-drunk monsters and humans in merchant garb stumbled out.

Sans led Walker over to one of the long communal tables.  It was well-lit and warm, which made her sigh, even though the place smelled a bit like stale ale.  At least it wasn’t too busy; they were able to seat themselves without bumping elbows with the groups of guards that had clustered throughout the establishment.

“i wonder if this place is run by the same guy.  if so, you’re in for a treat.”

“Really?  I’ve never been-oh!”

A fire elemental had quietly appeared at their table.  He crackled something Sans couldn’t discern, moving his hands as he spoke.

“this is grillby, the owner of the place.  he’d like to know what you’d like to eat.”

“Oh!  Well, nice to meet you, Grillby.  I...anything?”

“heh.  he has fresh fish today and bread and cheese.  and ale, of course.”  It was a platter with a fixed price, like a typical tavern, but his selection was unusually good.

“Okay?”

Sans tried to remember the correct signs, moving his hands a little awkwardly as he spoke.  “we’ll have two trenchers and two mugs of ale, thanks.”

Grillby grinned and made a sign.  It took Sans a moment to realize that it was the  _ correct _ sign for ale.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he’d originally said; he busied himself with finding the right coins to pay for their meal.  “uh, right.  thanks, bud.”

They were quickly served with a pair of trenchers with rolls, chunks of soft cheese, and baked fish.  Sans dug in.  Fish wasn’t common in Snowdin, especially not cooked with salt and spices like Grillby’s.  It was amazing.

_ So _ amazing, in fact, that he was almost done before he realized that Walker was just picking at her food.

“wha’s wrong?”

“N-nothing!  I’m doing just fine!”

He looked at her, then down at her trencher, then back up at her very focused expression.  He’d forgotten for a moment that she was from a wealthy foreign family.  “you’ve never eaten fish before, have you.”

“I’ve eaten fish, just...not like this.”

Sighing, he pushed his own trencher to the side and slid hers over.  The sturdy knife Grillby had given them helped with getting the scales off, then it was just a matter of putting the flaky meat in a pile and setting the bones and organs to the side.  Walker was blushing hotly by the time he slid her food back over, but her whispered thanks was worth it.

It also made him pause.  He...he was becoming way too attached to this human girl.  Just because she was pretty and bright and was genuinely interested and had showered him with praise.  They were half a day from Middlefield Abbey, and then he would start his investigation and she would continue on.  And they would never see each other again.

Despite his attempts to talk himself out of it, he felt sadness creep over him at the thought.

They finished their supper and ale and left, retracing their steps to a back alleyway from which Sans could take them via shortcut to their room.

A few other poor travelers were there, having been lured in by the Temmies in the absence of better options, but they were occupying pallets away from the ones Sans and Walker had claimed.  The night was cold from the advent of autumn and clammy, as Waterfall usually was.  Walker was shivering under the blanket from Rupert’s pack, settling herself as far into the moss bed as she could.

Sans laid awake much longer than he expected.  There was no real reason for it.  He was full, the cold and damp didn’t really bother him except when it caused his clothes to stick to his bones, and the subtle sounds of snoring from the other travelers were really more soothing than anything.

He rolled over to look at Walker.  She had drifted off, still huddled under her single blanket.  He hoped she wouldn’t get sick.  Sickness from the cold and damp could stick with humans for a long time, he’d heard.  Sometimes it was even fatal.  Healing magic could only do so much; it couldn’t cure whatever imbalance of the humors gave humans their coughs and aches and spots.

He unfolded his wool traveling cloak and laid it over the human beside him.  It was almost waterproof and plenty warm; hopefully it would help.  He tried not to think about it too much and curled into his own blanket, eventually finding sleep himself.

The next morning he woke up to the sensation of something being draped over him.  He froze, uncertain; Papyrus had  _ never _ done anything like that for him, so his sleep-addled mind wasn’t sure what it could be.  A moment later, he recognized Walker’s delicate cheekbones and short brown hair as she leaned over him, carefully arranging his traveling cloak.

“hey,” he croaked, still half asleep.

“Oh!  Sorry!”

“how early is it?”

“Probably pretty early.  It sounded like there was some kind of accident downstairs and it woke me up; I couldn’t get back to sleep.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to get you up too.”

“no, we might as well start early.”  He rolled over, collecting his blanket and cloak as he went.  “have the temmies checked on us yet?”

“No.  I heard a lot of yelling from downstairs, so I think they might be...busy.”

“well, that’s one less thing to worry about.  let’s get going before they do.”

Sans brought them to the roof again.  The sun was just beginning to rise, sending blades of pink light through the tall, thin windows in the rock face.  Along each row of windows was a walkway where night guards armed with bows and lanterns were finishing up their patrols.  Below them Waterfall Town was as busy as ever, with merchants and peddlers setting up their stalls along the piers and walkways and serving some early risers.

They bought bread and cheese from a rather nervous-looking rabbit monster and set off into the tunnel that led in and out of town.  There was a bit of a line - at least one merchant caravan was setting off early, too - but it gave them time to eat in peace.

The sun was still low in the sky when they emerged out of the tunnel and onto the path.  The merchants and their guards were  _ far _ too happy, in Sans’s opinion, shouting and joking with each other.  Someone offered Walker a fruit tart in honor of some feast day, which she gladly accepted, so the only one who was grumpy was Sans himself.

Thankfully, the merchants broke off and went along the road to collect their carts.

“Where are they going?”  Walker asked, sad to see her new friends go.

“look.”  He pointed back up at the cliff face.  A pair of huge stone doors had been opened, and carts were being lowered on pulleys.  “the carts can’t make it up and down the tunnel, so they have to go the hard way.  oh, heh, there goes a cow.”

There was, indeed, a cow being slowly lowered to the ground on one of the pulleys.  It didn’t look happy.

“That’s  _ genius! _  Who thought of such a thing?”

“i don’t know, but it works.”

They watched the carts and animals being lifted out of the city and down to the waiting merchants for a few minutes.

“well, better head off.”

“Can’t we travel with them?  It would be safer.”

“yeah, but they’re going south, and we have to go northeast.”

“Aww.”

She took one last look back at the merchants and set off behind him.

They made good time, and the road was fairly open.  Without tree cover there were fewer places for bandits to hide, so they didn’t have to detour.  A few hours after leaving Waterfall, the abbey came into view around the edge of the mountain range.

Middlefield Abbey was, as the name implied, in an open field, right on the border between the Kingdom of Monsters and the Kingdom of Eastriver.  It had a high wall surrounding it for protection and a tower to allow the nuns to keep an eye out for invaders, but Sans knew from talking with members of the Guard that the holy ground that surrounded it was far more effective than either.

“I...feel funny,” Walker said.  “Sorry; I think I need to stop for a bit.”

He brought them over to a large rock that sat along the road.  Walker collapsed onto it, holding her stomach.

“i think that’s the holy ground.”

“The what?”

“the ground around here’s been blessed.  it’s a weird type of magic, mostly human in origin.  it keeps violent people out: anyone who’s killed someone, i guess.  i don’t know a whole lot about it.”

“That’s weird.  I didn’t feel like this before.”

“we’re a lot closer now.  i guess the effect is stronger here.”  He was feeling a little sick as well, though he didn’t want to mention it.  “see those stone pillars up ahead?  that’s supposed to mark the entrance to the abbey grounds, from what i was told.  there should be a gatekeeper somewhere ahead.”

A thin, misty rain had set in by the time they reached the gatekeeper’s cottage.  It was a small stone building, not too far from the entrance to the abbey gates, with just enough room for them to duck out of the rain and sit at a fire.

The gatekeeper - a water monster in brown robes and a white veil - poked her head out of a back room, then hurried over with bread and cheese.  “You must be tired,” she said, shooing them into chairs and laying out the food on a nearby table.  “Please!  Sit, eat!”

They did so.  It was after noon, well past dinnertime, and they were both hungry.  Sans noticed that the queasy feeling that had followed him all afternoon had dissipated.

“Now, what brings you to the abbey?”

He shifted in his seat.  “i’m looking for someone.”

“Oh?”

“uh.  here.”  He pulled out the rolled piece of parchment Asgore had given him and handed it to the nun.  “this should...help explain things.”

She startled when the light caught the seal - the bright purple wax that formed the symbol of the Kingdom of Monsters was legendary - but took it anyways.  “Excuse me,” she said, bobbing her head and hurrying into her back room.  The door closed softly but firmly.

“so-”

“What was  _ that?” _  Walker was watching him with wide eyes.  “Was that the seal of the king?”

“well.  our king, yeah.  i told you he sent me on a quest, remember?”

“You didn’t mention you  _ worked  _ for him!”

“i don’t.  not really.  i just got picked to run an errand.”

“An  _ errand? _  You told me you were looking for some _ thing, _ not some _ one.” _

“yeah?”  He didn’t know what had upset her so much.  “sorry, i didn’t mean to mislead you-”

The nun reappeared, looking a bit pale.  “You must be Sans the Skeleton,” she said.  “Please, go up ahead; I’ve sent word telepathically, and the abbey will open the gates for you.  I’ll make sure your companion remains safe here.  Rupert, was it?”

“Um, Walker, actually.  Rupert…?”

“rupert was killed in a bandit attack.  walker was kind enough to accompany me this far.”

The gatekeeper accepted this without a fuss.  “Walker, then.  Do you need anything, my child?  More food, a change of clothes?”

For a moment, Sans thought Walker was going to bolt.  She had no obligation to stay, after all; the rain wasn’t so heavy that she couldn’t continue on her way.  The protection of the abbey would get her across the border and her own people would take care of her from there.

Instead, she smiled up at the nun.  “Some more cheese would be great if you have it, thanks.”

He ducked out the door and made his way up to the abbey.  As he approached the huge wooden doors, they creaked open slowly.  It was ominous; final, in a way.  He didn’t know what to expect.

A shout from somewhere above him made him look up; two nuns were turning cranks attached to pulleys, slowly closing the doors.  A third hurried up to him, looking somewhat frazzled.

“Sans the skeleton?  I’m Sister Maria.  The Mother Abbess is waiting for you; please, come with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeling your sins crawling on your back isn't a nice feeling, is it, guys?
> 
> A few brief notes:  
> \- Waterfall Town is my own creation. It's an homage to the original Undertale game, as I'm sure you all caught. The historical elements I took from medieval Venice (the water and some of the layout) and castles (pulleys and "loops," or tall thin windows that could be used to shoot arrows out without allowing enemy arrows in). Something like this wouldn't really be feasible in medieval times, but hey: we have _magic._  
>  \- It killed me to put Grillby in Waterfall, but I made Snowdin this teeny tiny town that we don't really see. I wanted a Grillby, so here he is in Waterfall making a very good living for himself.  
> \- The layout of Medieval Grillby's is common for taverns: several long, communal tables. Similarly, the idea of only serving one supper (instead of allowing customers to choose from a menu) also comes from this time period. No "burgers or fries," sorry.  
> \- The keen observer may notice that Sans's comments about barrier magic are a direct reversal of how the Mt. Ebott barrier works in Undertale. I've long had the idea that the barrier in the game is a perversion of some beneficial magic, and the most similar magic in fantasy that we have is some kind of protective force field. So here you go: magic-wielding humans using "barriers" to protect monster towns.  
> \- The religious themes in this story are here for historical accuracy. Abbeys and monasteries were common in the middle ages and were held in respect. In addition to being religious centers, they were also places of learning. They really did have fortifications in case of attack. So have fun imagining badass monster nuns fending off invading forces.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you're still enjoying. We are almost to the end of the story; hang in there!
> 
> A brief look forward:
>
>> “Can you, um, please stay with me?”
>> 
>> “uh, what?”
>> 
>> “Stay...please?”
>> 
>> “that’s not really…”
>> 
>> “I’m scared, okay? Please?”
>> 
>> “...fine.”


	4. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fate of the princesses is revealed, and Sans delivers his report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on _Daughter of Time:_
> 
> Asgore asked Sans to figure out what the heck happened to two princesses from a neighboring kingdom as part of a peace treaty. Oh, and he'll get to marry one.
> 
> Bandits killed his traveling buddy, but luckily another one fell - quite literally - into his lap. They dodged _more_ bandits and met an aggressively friendly Toriel in the ruins of the great city of Home. From there they passed through Waterfall, a town built on an underground lake, and went on to the abbey where one of the princesses was supposed to be headed.

The abbey looked like an entire town surrounded by a wall.  The church in the center was obvious, with its stained glass windows and bell towers, but there were dozens of buildings scattered around it that Sans couldn’t place.  It was a city of women, all dressed the same, and they were apparently self-sufficient.  He passed several gardens tended by plant-monsters, a clinic, and even a huge human woman hammering away in a smithy.

Sister Maria led Sans to a ring of buildings next to the church.  There was a more concentrated gathering of nuns there, scurrying to and fro under the covered walkways that surrounded a central courtyard and trying to avoid the light rain.  The benches and tables set up in the courtyard implied that it was usually a hub of activity.

“This way.”  She led him through an arch and into a hallway with a dozen identical doors.  The nun opened one and waved Sans inside, closing it behind him.

An older human woman sitting at a desk looked up as he entered.  “Ah, you must be Sans.  I am Abbess Timble.  Please, have a seat; I hear you come a long way.”

He did so.  There was something intimidating about this woman, but he wasn’t sure why.  She was clearly used to being obeyed without question.  He waited while she scratched out a few more words onto the parchment in front of her, then laid her quill aside and sat up.  Her back made a satisfying-sounding crack.

“I hear you are on quite the mission.  Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

Sans explained what he knew about the situation with King Fendrel and his daughters, how no one knew where they were.  He went on to describe his own journey - first with Rupert, then with Walker - leaving out the ugly bits.

“I think I can put the pieces together, thank you.  That is...very troubling, indeed.  We sisters are safe here, with our wall and our towers and our holy ground, but the state of the world at large does not escape us.  We can offer shelter to those seeking refuge from the bandits that roam the forests, but if they cannot get here that offer is useless.

“As for the situation with the princesses of Eastriver...well.  That, I believe, I can shed some light on.”

She reached into a cubby in her desk and pulled out several dirty rolls of parchment.  “It appears that an organization of bandits that inhabits this area wished a bit more control over who comes and goes.  They were not able to take us by force, but they had hoped that they could...manipulate us into recognizing their authority and paying them some level of homage.

“They sent me these some weeks ago by using courier boys.  Nice young men, very polite; kidnapped from one of the little towns on the border, from the sound of it.  We’ve kept them here until the situation can be resolved and they can be returned to their families...but I digress.”

Sans looked over the parchments.  They were, from what he could tell, ransom notes.  The spelling was unusual and the lettering was sloppy, but he could piece together the general idea they were trying to convey.  After, all, he didn’t have the best handwriting himself.  “so...you don’t know what happened to them, either.”

“Well, not quite.  The last ‘boy’ they sent was not a boy at all; it was a young woman in disguise.  Princess Ethel managed to slip away from the bandits who had captured her, sent the original courier boy home, and showed up herself at our gates.”

“oh.  and she is…?”

“Ah, the elder.  The one who should have arrived here to begin with.”

“well, that’s good.”  He wanted to double-check to make sure, but that was one princess accounted for.  “and the other?”

“The other we know of by rumor only.  In her time with the bandits, Princess - well, now Sister - Ethel overheard them talking about her younger sister.  A group of noblemen who had something against the girl wanted her out of the palace, and when King Fendrel switched which daughter he was sending to us it ruined their plans.  He kidnapped the girl and sold her to the bandits, if their word is to be believed.”

“oh, stars.”

“Indeed.  We can only hope God has mercy on the poor girl’s soul.”

It took Sans a moment to register the meaning.  “wait, she’s dead?”

The door behind him opened.  The young human woman who entered was dressed the same as all the other nuns, but he could see and feel the family resemblance.  This was one of Fendrel’s daughters, he was certain.

“Sans,” Abbess Timble said, “This is Sister Ethel.  Sister, this fine young monster came as a representative of your father and King Asgore of the Kingdom of Monsters.  Apparently there was some confusion over how you came to be here.”

The nun smiled.  She looked genuinely happy, and certainly more at peace than he expected of any human from Eastriver.  “Thank you for coming, Sir Sans.  As you can see, I arrived safely.”

“uh, no problem.  i’m...sorry about your sister.”

Her smile faded.  “Thank you.  It will break my father’s heart to hear of her fate; they were always close, with her being the youngest and growing up without a mother.  If it’s not too much trouble, could you take something to him?”

“sure…?”

The nun pulled something shiny from her robes and held it out to him.  “This was a necklace that belonged to our mother.  Frisk never took it off.  It was given to me as proof that she is dead.  Perhaps...perhaps there is some hope - our father taught all his children to be resourceful and take care of ourselves - but I...I have reason to believe that the people who betrayed her would not allow her to live.  Still, this ought to be given to my father.  He can confirm its authenticity and decide what to do from there.”

Abbess Timble nodded.  “We have attempted to send messages to King Fendrel with the news, but I fear our messengers are being intercepted.  Please, take care; I would not want you to suffer their fate.”

“right.  thanks.”

“No thanks are necessary; you are doing us a great service.  Your business here is concluded, but please, won’t you stay the night?”

“i have someone outside who might be waiting on me.”

“Ah.  Well, you may both spend the night in the gatehouse, if you prefer.  Sister Agatha believes that the rain will continue through the night, but it may abate by morning.  At least let us send you on your way with food?”

“okay.  thanks.”

Sister Ethel led him to the kitchens, which stood separate from the surrounding buildings, and began loading a basket with bread, cheese, and vegetables.  “I can hardly believe you walked all the way here from New Home,” she said.  “Isn’t it far?”

“only a few days’ walk.”

“Still, that is a long way to come with no guards on a road full of bandits.”

“it wasn’t too bad.  we made good time.”

“Your guide got you here safely, then?”

“uh, no; he was killed in an attack on the road.  they got him in the back before we knew they were there.  i escaped, but found another traveler who was also heading this way.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear it!  I’ll pray for his soul.  What was his name?”

“rupert.”

“Rupert.  Poor Rupert.”  She took a moment to ladle some fragrant stew into a clay bowl, which she covered with a lid.  “And this other traveler; what was he like?”

“she, actually.  she said she was separated from the group she was traveling with and needs to get home.  she...heh.  she’s a character.  climbed a tree and tried to steal my pack, thought i was a dead human.”

She chuckled, but there were tears forming in her eyes.  “That...that sounds like something my own sister would do.  Oh, Frisk…”

“frisk?  that was your sister’s name?”

“Yes.  She was always so lively.  Never had too many friends - politics can be cruel - but she was the brightest of us all.  It’s hard to believe that she’s  _ gone.” _

“i’m, uh, sorry.”

“Thank you.”  She dried her eyes with the edge of a sleeve, then examined the basket.  “Stew, bread, cheese, potatoes, carrots, and those foreign vegetables Sister Margaret likes.  That should keep the three of you until morning.”  She went to lift the basket, but it barely budged.  “Um…”

“need a hand?”

She was blushing.  She looked a bit like Walker, actually, which was funny.  “I...appear to have filled this a bit too full.”

Another nun walked by them on her way out of the kitchen and did a double-take.  “Sister, how can this poor monster lift that basket?”

“I’m sorry, Sister-”

The nun grumbled something under her breath about nobles who didn’t know how anything worked.  “Here, let me take the stew out-”

“But it’s under everything else-”

Sans held out a hand and floated the basket over.  “i can handle this just fine, but thanks.”

“Oh!  That’s terribly handy!”

“yup.”

Sister Ethel - still blushing - escorted him back to the gates.  They groaned open slowly as the nuns manning the cranks turned them.

“Oh, and Sir Sans?”

“yeah?”  He turned back to look at the princess-turned-nun.

“Would you please tell my father I’m happy?  So he doesn’t worry?”

If a human had asked him to pass such a message to the King of Eastriver a week ago, he would’ve laughed in her face.  “i’ll tell him.”

“Thank you.”

The doors closed behind him with a heavy thud.

To his surprise, Walker was still there when he arrived back at the gatehouse.  She and the gatekeeper had become friends in the few hours he’d been gone, and were happily chatting about something he couldn’t follow, but they paused when he entered.  “Sans!” she said, jumping up.  “Did you find what you were looking-”

He looked down, following where she was staring.  He still had the necklace clutched in one hand.  He held it out to show her.  “kinda.  it’s not what i thought, but...well.”

“O-oh.”  She reached out towards it, then jerked her hand back.  “It’s...pretty.”

“yeah?”  It looked way too shiny to him, but he wasn’t a fancy lady.  “i hope someone appreciates it.”

“Appreciates...?  What are you going to do with it?”

“take it back to a king, i guess.”

“What - King Asgore?”

“no, another king.  fendrel, from eastriver.”  He tried to keep the hostility out of his voice.  Not only had the man just lost a beloved daughter, he was also probably Walker’s king.

“He’s in the Kingdom of Monsters?”

“he was when i left.  he asked for help from our king.”

“Let me start supper,” the gatekeeper said, starting to unpack the basket.  “Oh, bless Sister Ethel!  She remembered what I like!  A thoughtful girl, that one.”

He ignored the excited nun and focused on Walker.  She was acting very strangely.  Suspicion tugged at the back of his skull, and - feeling a little foolish for not doing it days ago - he checked her.

And blinked.  There was no family resemblance, no familial ties.  Nothing.

Actually, a  _ strange _ amount of nothing.  It wasn’t just that she wasn’t related; her stats were completely hidden.  Which meant…

He waited until Sister Margaret bustled away into her kitchen before he spoke.  “you can use magic.”

Walker jerked up to look at him, eyes wide.  “You...how did you  _ know?” _

“i didn’t until just now.  you’re shielding yourself with magic.”

“...Yes.”

“that’s how the bandits on the road didn’t find us.  i thought it was a property of the camouflage spell, but…”

“Well, I didn’t  _ want _ to be captured by bandits.  It’s...it sounds unpleasant.”

There was a tenseness to her shoulders that sat wrong with him.

“What are you going to do with the necklace?”

“walker, are you okay?”

“Please?”

He sighed.  “okay.  let me tell you the whole story.

“i was sent here by my king on behalf of  _ your _ king to look for a pair of lost princesses.”

“A pair?”

“do you want me to tell the story or not?”

“Sorry; please, go ahead.”  She looked strangely attentive.

“so both princesses went missing.  one was supposed to be coming here, but the other...well, we didn’t know what happened to her.  turns out, the one was grabbed by bandits, but got away.  the other was  _ sold _ to bandits - and i’d love to get my hands on whatever sick nobleman decided to do  _ that _ \- and was killed.”  He let the necklace’s pendant swing free.  “they gave this to the surviving sister before she escaped.  now i get to tell her dad that she’s dead.”

“That’s awful.”  There were tears in Walker’s eyes, but the look on her face said that she hadn’t noticed.  “So she’s really dead?”

“as far as we can tell.  her sister didn’t have much hope that she’s still around, given the circumstances.  she was real torn up about it, too.”

“That’s...awful.”

“yeah.”  He watched Walker for a moment longer.  “do you...wanna hold it?”

“Oh-what?”

“the necklace.  here.”

“No, I...I couldn’t.”

“it’s just a necklace.  you aren’t superstitious, are you?  we’ve known for ages that ghosts are just monsters.  no dead girl’s gonna haunt you because of a necklace.  you look like you’re really interested in it; here.”

She reached out slowly, then - like petting a baby animal - took the pendent in her hands.  Her thumbs moved carefully around and down the sides of the pendent, tracing over the etched designs and around the gemstones embedded in the gold.  “It really is pretty.”

“if you say so.”

“You don’t think so?”  She sounded almost offended.

“hey, woah.  i’m just not one for shiny things.”  He held a hand over it where it sat in Walker’s hands and concentrated.  “heh.  i can feel the love in it, though.”

“The love?”

“someone loved this a lot.  it leaves a...a residue, i guess.  monsters can feel that, or some of us can, at least.  it’s a nice feeling.”

“Oh.”

“you can hold onto it, you know.  i’ll need it before you leave, but i trust you not to run off with it.”

That surprised them both, but as soon as the words left his mouth Sans knew it was true.

“You...you do?  Thank you.”  She closed her hand around the necklace.   _ “Thank _ you.”

Supper was served not long after, a warm stew with bread and cheese and some strange, sliced vegetable that Sans didn’t recognize.  It didn’t taste bad, exactly, just...different.  Walker disagreed, engaging in a subtle competition with Sister Margaret to see who could eat more.

The beds were plain, just straw pallets, but warm and cozy.  Sans couldn’t remember any of his dreams that night, but woke up several times to Walker’s whimpering and crying.

She didn’t let go of the necklace all evening.

Of course, Sans had other things to worry about than his traveling companion’s odd behavior.  It was strange to think about, but he was  _ free. _  Despite the grief of the princess’s family,  _ he  _ was getting the best possible outcome.  Not only had he gotten all the information he needed in one place, and in a timely fashion, but he also had proof to show.  He’d fulfilled his mission, so he would be rewarded, even though the princess was dead.  He didn’t have to marry anyone and Papyrus would get his lifelong wish.

He tried to stifle the guilty feeling growing in his soul.  It felt a bit like cheating.

They were woken in the morning by the church bells sounding the hour.  Sister Margaret was praying in the front room, so they waited in the dormitory.

“so you’re heading on to eastriver, huh?”  Sans yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eye socket.

“I’ve been thinking, actually.  There’s...really nothing for me there.”

“oh?  what about your family?”

“I don’t think I can join them.  It’s too dangerous.  Too many people don’t like me.  They’ve...tried to hurt me before, but I was able to escape.  If I go back, I’ll just be putting them in more danger.”

“huh.”  That wasn’t the answer he’d expected, but maybe the news of the dead princess had shaken her.  That would explain a lot.  “then...what will you do?”

She hummed.  “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll walk with you back to New Home.  That’s probably the safest.  I’ll try to find a way to make a living there.  Maybe in the Spring I can get a ride on a caravan and head out to Toriel’s place; I’m sure she’d like the company.”

“yeah, i’m sure she would.”  It sounded like the gatekeeper was done with her prayers, so he moved towards the door.  “but...don’t you want to let your family know you’re safe?”

“Maybe.  When things have died down a little.”

“well, alright.  it just seems like a lot of work to go through only to turn right back around.”

She laughed.  “You’re doing the same, though, aren’t you?”

“yeah, but i agreed to do this.  you sure?”

She looked out the window, over the landscape.  In the distance they could faintly see one of the towers of some Eastriver castle.  “I’m sure.”

“alright.”

They ate breakfast with Sister Margaret, who sent them on their way with bread and cheese and - somewhat begrudgingly - the remainder of her strange vegetables.  She also drew them a rough map of the nearby roads, making sure that Sans knew  _ exactly _ which roads to take and where bandits had most recently been sighted.  His head spun with all the information but Walker couldn’t stop grinning, chattering away about her new life plans.

They stopped at midday for dinner, then again at night for supper.  They had managed to avoid bandits, which was great, but they were too close for comfort to the place where Rupert had been killed.

“hey, walker?”

“Hmm?”

“can we take a shortcut?”

She hesitated, but held out her hand.

He took them down the road as far as he could, hoping and praying that he wasn’t walking them into a bandit ambush.

The road was quiet when he appeared, and he relaxed.  “okay.  this was supposed to be a safe area.”

“Where...are we??”

“a few hours down the road; hopefully far enough for us to get past anything that might’ve messed with us.”

“Oh.  Neat.  So that’s-look out!”

She pulled him behind a tree.  The sound of voices and the tramp of feet echoed around them.  Slowly, torches appeared out of the woods on the other side of the road.

For one heart-stopping moment Sans thought he’d killed them both, but then the light reflected off the leader’s helmet.  He laughed, pulling Walker out of the bushes with him.  “undyne!  hey, undyne!”

“HOLD YOUR FIRE!”  Undyne said, despite the fact that no one was trying to shoot.  “YOU PUNK!  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE??  AND WHO IS THIS?”

He explained the situation, still holding Walker’s hand.  He knew that Undyne would tease him about that later, but the way the poor woman was gripping his fingers he didn’t think he  _ could _ let go.  She did show the necklace she was holding when he asked, though she was obviously hesitant to pass it over to Undyne for inspection.

“Hmph.”  She turned over the gold medallion, looking at the gems and inscriptions.  “Yeah, it’s unlikely that bandits would hand over something this valuable unless they wanted to send a message.  Oh, stop, kid; I’m not gonna hurt it.  It’s not yours, anyways.”

Walker flinched as if Undyne had slapped her across the face.

“Well, I guess we’re gonna hafta split up.  Dogamy!  Dogaressa!  You two head down the road, see if you can find Rupert’s body.  He’s the human guide; you knew him, right?  Lesser, Greater, you two take these two lumps back to camp and get them settled.  The rest of you, come with me; we’ll finish securing the area.”

There was a scramble as the other guards did as they were told.

The guards’ camp was comfortable, with cloth tents and a roaring campfire.  Walker sighed in relief when she was settled onto a pallet, finally relaxing.

He’d forgotten that she was afraid of monsters.  She hadn’t really reacted to the gatekeeper nun or the monsters in Waterfall Town, after all.  Then again, Undyne was terrifying on her own.

“Can you, um, please stay with me?”

Sans, who had been about to head to his own tent, turned back.  “uh, what?”

“Stay...please?”

“that’s not really…”

“I’m scared, okay?”

“you sure you don’t want one of the guards in here with you, then?  i saw alyssa around camp; she’s a human guard, if you’re scared of monsters.”

“...Please?”

“...fine.”

He ducked out, gathered his bedding, and dropped it next to Walker’s.

“Thanks.”

He rolled his eyes, but grinned back.

“Hey.”

“hmm?”

“Thanks.”

“you already said that.”

“Still.  Thanks.”

“no problem.”

He wasn’t sure why her thanks sounded like something more.

They slept soundly that night, even Walker.  A day of exercise had made her too tired even for nightmares.

The guards broke up camp early the next morning, eating their gruel in shifts while helping to pack up.  Lesser Dog and Greater Dog were assigned to accompany Sans and Walker back to the capital, while the rest of the guards continued to patrol for bandits.  Between the information from Sans and the reports of the abbey nuns, they had a pretty good idea of where to look.

“We’ll keep an eye out for this princess, too,” Undyne told Sans privately before heading off.  “Fendrel’s a better man than his father, by all accounts, but I don’t like where this is going.  If she was killed on our side of the border, he could start a war over this.”

The words stuck with Sans for the next few days, all the way back to the capital.  Walker was quiet in the presence of the dog guards, never leaving his side and holding his hand as often as he could manage it.  He tried to coax her out of her shell with stories of his brother and their home, but it was only at night when the other two were sleeping that he saw the old Walker shining through.

Needless to say, it was a long three days.

It was dusk when they arrived, but the streets of New Home were still crowded.  The bustle near the castle had died down since he left, at least.  Apparently the novelty of foreign humans had worn off somewhat.

It seemed like there was no big banquet scheduled for that evening.  The foreign servants were down in the staff dining room, mostly clustered together, but a few had mingled with the monsters and humans who served Asgore.

Greater and Lesser marched Sans and Walker straight past all this and towards the throne room, eager to fulfill their duty.

“Wait,” Walker said.  “I’m not...this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing.  Please?  I’ll leave - just…”  She was shaking.

A pair of pages opened the doors to the throne room.  Walker nearly stumbled when Greater Dog nudged her forward, so Sans took her hand.  It felt sticky again.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice broken.

“it’ll be fine.  asgore’s a big teddy bear.  and if anything goes wrong, we can take a shortcut right out of here.”

She whimpered, but walked forwards.

Asgore was seated on his throne, one of his lighter crowns on his head.  He was watching the approaching party with a neutral expression on his face.

“Sans of Snowdin Forest,” he said once they had bowed before him, “I am glad that you have returned safely.  Please, what did you find?”

Sans told the story of the missing princesses, and what Sister Ethel had overheard.  He didn’t mention Walker’s inexplicable fascination with the dead princess’s necklace, or her magic.  Actually, he tried to leave her out as much as possible.

“I see.  That is...most unfortunate; Fendrel will be most grieved to hear the fate of his youngest daughter.  Reggie, would you…?  Yes, thank you.”  A page boy standing along one wall bowed and disappeared into a small door.

Asgore’s face was trained on Walker.

“Child, may I see this necklace?”

She held it out, keeping it remarkably steady despite the fact that Sans could feel her other hand shaking.

“Fascinating.  This truly is a marvelous piece, and a bit legendary.  It was given to Fendrel’s wife as a wedding gift by craftsmen from the Avalon Merchants’ Guild.  Twenty-seven craftsmen worked to make this perfect.  The etchings along the side and back are representative of her interests and background; see here, the tropical bird with the tall plumage?  She had one like it as a child, but couldn’t bring it with her when she was married.  I knew her then, and was one of the few she showed this to when she received it.  There is nothing like this in all the world.

“This is truly a terrible day, if Princess Frisk is dead.  I do not know how to tell her father what happened to her.”

Sans didn’t know either, so he said nothing.

“Well, that is not for you to worry about.  Lesser Dog, Greater Dog, please help yourselves to supper; I wish to speak with these two for a moment.”

The dogs woofed their agreement and left.  The doors swung open and shut with a bang.

“Sans, as per our agreement, you shall be rewarded for your service.  You may keep the house and land you have been tending on the outskirts of Snowdin Forest, if you wish, or I can arrange a buyer.  You will be provided with a house here in New Home, as well as an income; you may go into business, administration...all avenues befitting a vassal of the crown are open to you.  And, of course, Undyne is prepared to offer your brother a training position with the Guard, pending review.”

“thank you.”

“You are freed from your agreement to marry the princess, under the circumstances.”

Walker’s hand tightened, but she didn’t speak.

“Fendrel’s other daughters and sons are married, save for Ethel who is happy where she is, so we will attempt to secure the treaty we have been drafting through other means.  No one can fault you for trying your best.”  He sat back, relaxing into a more informal pose.  “As for you, Walker, you have assisted on a very dangerous mission.  What would you ask of the Kingdom of Monsters?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“Please, child, do not be afraid.  You are my guest here; hospitality demands that I assure your safety-”

“YOU!”  A foreign nobleman burst through a side doorway, finger outstretched.  “Your majesty, Asgore, I demand the head of this young woman in the name of King Fendrel of Eastriver!”

The king rose, gripping the trident that had been leaning against his throne.  “Peace, Lord Jarin.  Do you know this woman?”

“Yes!  She is a traitor, a scoundrel!  She must be executed at once!”

“If she is a subject of the Kingdom of Eastriver, then let King Fendrel decide her fate.”

The lord’s face grew red.  “Sir, King Asgore, I have made it my life’s purpose to rid the land of this...this  _ witch _ and all like her!  She is a threat!  I cannot allow my liege's eyes to fall upon such a person!”

“That is unfortunate.  This ‘person’ is a guest in my home, and I cannot allow harm to come to her.”

“Then-”

A group of noblemen ran into the room, followed by ladies in flowing dresses.  Surprisingly, some of them were monsters; Sans hadn’t noticed monsters among the foreigners when he’d first arrived, and Eastriver was notoriously hostile to his kind.  One of the men grabbed Jarin’s arm.  “No,” he said, “Jarin, that’s enough.  Let’s settle this peacefully.  Do not draw a sword under your host’s roof.”

Walker had shifted so she was between Sans and the angry gaggle of nobles, her eyes burning and her hand clutching his so hard it hurt.

Jarin struggled for a moment, then settled.  “Very well.  At the very least, please do not let her near my lord.”

“Indeed,” said a lady, some type of fire monster with orange skin and glowing green eyes, “Treat her as a guest, but do not allow her near our lord.  I fear what could happen if they met.”

Asgore nodded.  “I shall take your request into consideration.  Now, did you need something else from us?”

The group dissipated, murmuring their respects to the King of Monsters.  One man, in his haste, tripped over his own feet; the ladies laughed and left him there.

“Young man, are you alright?”

The man stood up with surprising agility and bowed deeply.  “Your Majesty, please do not take these people seriously.”

“Oh?  Why not?”

“Because they are lying.  The young woman behind you is not a danger to us.  She...I have sworn not to say too much, but please allow her to go her own way.”  He bowed and left without another word.

“Well,” Asgore said, “That was...exciting.  Young woman, do you care to explain?”

Walker gulped again, licked her lips, and said, “I...I’d rather not?”

“Come, child.  I have one group of people who wants you dead, while another clearly wishes you to be spared.  Who shall I listen to?”

“I’d much rather be alive.”

“Then please, explain.”

She took a deep breath.  Her grip on Sans’s hand grew almost unbearable, but he squeezed her back.  “I come from a large family, King Asgore.  We were...of the nobility, but I’m not at liberty to say which.”

“Why?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.  She looked frustrated, as if she  _ wanted _ to say something but just...couldn’t.

Something clicked in Sans’s skull.

“geas,” he whispered.  “you’re under a geas.  you  _ can’t _ say who you are; the magic is too strong.”

She held very, very still, and he mentally kicked himself.  She couldn’t even confirm or deny it.  A geas - a magical obligation or prohibition - would explain why she hadn’t given him her name or any solid information about her.  She’d been cursed into silence.  It also explained why she’d been using her shielding powers for a straight week; humans were strong, but that couldn’t be healthy.

Asgore sighed, returning to his throne.  “Let us assume that you are, then, and go from there.  You are of the noble class of Eastriver.  Why do your peers wish you dead?”

“I have magic.  Eastriver has no problem with monsters using magic - they’re in the minority, and unwelcome in many areas of the country, but as you see we have a select few even in the nobility - but humans with magic are ostracized by both races.  I’ve been accused of causing deaths.”

“And yet, if Sans is to be believed, you were able to enter the holy grounds of Middlefield Abbey.  Clearly, the claims against you are false.”

“It’s a bit more complex than that.  They believe it’s my...influence that kills people, not me directly.”

“I see.  That is complicated.”

The page’s door opened, and Reggie the page stepped through.  He cleared his throat.  “Your majesty, King Fendrel of Eastriver.”

King Fendrel stepped through the short doorway - crouched over in a way that looked uncomfortable - and dusted off his robes, looking amused.  “That was certainly an experience, Asgore.  Now what-oh.”  His eyes fell on Sans and Walker, and he took a half-step forward before catching himself.  “My...oh.  You...you’ve returned.”

“Sans has brought us word of your daughters, Fendrel.  Please, sit.”

“Of course.  Forgive me, young woman; for a moment, you reminded me very much of my own daughter.”

Walker was barely breathing.  Sans’s mind was racing, putting together everything he knew.  The geas, the strange behavior, and all the little secrets.

As Asgore began to work his way around to telling Fendrel about his daughters, Sans brought a hand to his wrist.  The leather bands were still there.  The one that had held camouflage magic was dull, but he had others.

The two he recognized were ones he never thought he’d need: a rune of unlocking and a rune of dispelling illusion.  He touched the second and closed his eye sockets, channelling his magic and intent and directing both towards Walker.

“...Frisk?”

King Fendrel was looking at Walker, eyes wide.

“Frisk,  _ is  _ that you?”

Walker’s face had changed a little: the shape of her eyes, the curve of her nose and cheekbones.  Her skin was still a bit darker than Fendrel’s, but it looked right on her.

She wasn’t saying a word.  She wasn’t even moving.

It was a long shot, but Sans activated the rune of unlocking.  It was normally used on  _ physical  _ objects, like doors and chests, but what was a geas but a magical lock?  Magic worked on intent, after all.

With an almost metallic clunk, the strange magic around Walker dispersed.

“Daddy!” she said, sounding a little hysterical.  She ripped her hand from Sans’s.  “Dad-oh, Dad!”

The human king, tears falling freely down his face, collapsed to his knees.  Walker - or, rather, Frisk - skidded to a stop beside him, throwing her arms around him and shaking as well.

“Frisk, you’re...you’re  _ alive. _  You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive…”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.  “I couldn’t...they got me in my sleep, and I couldn’t get away, and then they used some kind of magic on me and I couldn’t  _ say  _ anything-”

“It doesn’t matter.  As long as you’re safe, it doesn’t matter.”

Asgore cleared his throat.  “As much as I hate to break up a happy reunion, I fear that the circumstances  _ do _ matter.  A group of your subjects just left after asking me to keep this child away from you, claiming that she was a danger to you.  Some even asked that her life be forfeit.”

Fendrel growled.  “Of course.  Certain members of my court - monster and human alike - have always been in opposition to Frisk.  I could hardly bear to let her out of my sight, for fear that they would attack her.  I thought I had them all accounted for on the day she went missing, but it appears that I have some work to do in that regard.”

“Of course.  Please let us know if you require any assistance.  Sans is well-versed in magic, as you have seen; his father was one of our greatest inventors, and his family is known for their power and control over their abilities.  Besides, I believe he now has a vested interest in keeping your family safe.”

That’s right, Sans realized.  He was gonna get married.

To Walker, apparently.

_ Well, _ he thought, mentally shrugging,  _ I guess there are far worse things in the world. _

In her father’s arms, Frisk was laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, they're getting married! Aren't arranged marriages just adorable?
> 
> A few brief notes:  
> \- Sans was correct a few chapters back regarding the usual ages when humans were married around this time. If you think the Victorian period was bad with teenagers getting married, let me tell you, the middle ages were worse. With life expectancy in the 40s for the very highest classes of people, they had to marry young to have any chance of raising their children to maturity. Also, for peasants, they couldn't necessarily feed all their children in bad times; marrying them off was a kinder solution than we've had in other times and places.  
> \- The idea of a geas comes from the Irish, and may either be a type of vow (when undertaken voluntarily) or a curse (when imposed on someone else). In this case, someone used magic on Frisk to keep her from revealing her name and her history and to force her to keep hiding herself via magic. She was also magically disguised enough that her own father didn't recognize her, so Sans can be forgiven for not recognizing her.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! This brings the main story to a close, but I do have an epilogue that I'll be posting in a few days. Then, on to the next story!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans has had a busy year since we last saw him. What has he been up to?

Sans and Frisk were married on a clear Spring day one year after their adventures.

It had been a long year, full of travel back and forth between Snowdin and New Home and Joyadelmar , the capital of Eastriver.  Asgore had given Sans and Papyrus a small house in New Home, and Papyrus took almost the entire year to clean things up to his liking and move their belongings over.  It had been a very nice home to begin with, in Sans’s opinion, but his brother was more picky about those things.  Besides, Sans was marrying a princess.

Frisk insisted that they help Papyrus when they weren’t busy elsewhere.  The pair of them got along famously; Papyrus called her “SISTER” every chance he got, and Frisk declared that he was better than all her brothers combined.  Sans was  _ almost _ jealous at how well their personalities meshed, but he knew Papyrus had no romantic attraction to humans.

Unfortunately, Frisk and Sans weren’t in New Home nearly as much as any of them would have wanted.  After a long talk and a formal pardon for the killing of the human soldier 15 years prior, Sans was appointed the Royal Judge of Asgore’s court.  It was an interesting position, with more responsibilities than he ever wanted in his life, but the looks on Frisk’s and Papyrus’s faces when he told them the news made it worth the effort.  He didn’t have a lot of duties just yet - mostly presiding over petty squabbles between nobles - but his ability to detect lies and half-truths was already coming in handy.

Frisk helped, too.  Her magical talents lay in other areas - protection and combat magic, from what they’d been able to tell - but she was clever, and provided a different perspective.  They had spent many enjoyable evenings arguing cases over their supper, getting to know each other through obscure legal debates.  They made grand plans to overhaul the ramshackle and often arbitrary legal system but that would be a long time in coming.  Years, maybe.  The work of a lifetime.

Still, they had to start somewhere.  It was in their capacity as legal authorities that they traveled to Joyadelmar, at least officially.  King Fendrel had returned home not long after Frisk was found, eager to get a head start on sorting out his court, but it was a lengthy and delicate process.  It took all of Sans and Frisk’s combined wits to figure out which nobles were willing to back the crown, which were looking out for their own interests, which had legitimate concerns and which were just selfish bastards.  It didn’t help that Fendrel had limited power, even in his own kingdom; like most kings, he was almost overshadowed by the vast wealth and might of the feudal lords.

There was a strong, stubborn strain of loyalty in Eastriver, though.  Some of the nobles followed Fendrel because they had fought beside his father through many wars, and would follow their commander in peace just as they had in combat.  Others had been opposed to the war and were interested in change.  Still others saw a financial benefit to peace, looking to make a fortune in trade.  Whatever their motives, Fendrel had enough backing to enforce the peace treaty with the Kingdom of Monsters, especially after bribing some of less politically-minded lords with pretty magical baubles.

The thing that really grated on Sans was the fact that they couldn’t do anything against the noblemen who had plotted against his future wife.  As much as he wanted to dangle them over the edge of the castle parapets until they squealed, they had too much power.  Fendrel had no authority to overthrow those who opposed him, not without starting a war.  So Sans did the only thing he could: he penned them in.

It was during a visit with Toriel, the friendly monster who lived in the ruins of Home, that he discovered his talent for jokes.  She was a great audience and even told jokes of her own back.  He slowly refined his delivery until he was funnier than a court jester, then let his charm loose on the nobles of Eastriver.  Befriending them sounded as lovely as chewing tree bark - at least when he started - but for Frisk, he would do anything.

And little by little, his influence grew.  He started to genuinely care about the people of the court, and they in turn began to care about him.  In a matter of months he had built up a following.  He wasn’t just “that monster that Princess Frisk is marrying;” he was “Sans, the guy who can make anyone cry with laughter.”  No one wanted to be the one to hurt him, and by extension Frisk; and that changed hearts more than any number of empty threats.

It wasn’t just the nobles, either.  He made friends with the maids and the cooks and the guards, with the bakers in town and the beggar children who loitered outside the castle gates.  He became popular.  He was taken by surprise when Frisk pointed it out to him, but after a moment’s thought he just shrugged it off and stocked up more on those little sweet rolls the kids liked so much.  What could he do?  It took more effort  _ not _ to care, really.

Of course, there were some days when it all became a bit overwhelming, especially when Frisk took him on a month-long trip to meet all thirteen of her siblings.  With the exception of Sister Ethel in her quiet abbey, the royal family of Eastriver was  _ loud. _  Happy, yes, and they shared Frisk’s good humor, but it was a lot for someone who until recently had been living in a tiny little cabin with only his brother for company.  Even Papyrus couldn’t match the energy of an entire castle full of humans.

It was those moments when Frisk would cause a distraction - belting out a song or lighting her skirt on fire or staging a fainting fit; they needed to work on her subtlety - that allowed him to escape.  More than once they’d just...disappeared, finding an abandoned room and snickering like children while the pages tried to figure out where they could’ve gone.  It wasn’t perhaps the most proper thing to do, but no one could accuse them of acting inappropriately in company.

Except for the whole magic thing, of course.  That was the one thing Sans was struggling to change peoples’ minds about.  People from Eastriver didn’t much mind when  _ he _ used magic, but when Frisk did they acted like she’d stabbed a small child.  It hurt her more than she ever expressed, especially since her powers were growing and changing in ways she didn’t understand.

It was a wayward comment from her oldest brother that had them reaching out to the neighboring country of Flomrey, where Frisk’s mother’s family lived, to find a tutor.  It took months of delicate negotiations, but they managed to find someone who had worked with the family and knew their particular kinds of magic.  The grumpy old turtle monster had taken one look at Frisk, scoffed, and loudly declared that he needed to teach her everything from scratch.  Despite complaints from both of them, it was impossible to miss how much Frisk loved her magic lessons.

Almost as much as she loved Sans.

That was what made their wedding truly special.  Not the gifts or the fanfare or the many family and friends who had come to celebrate with them (and what was going on between Toriel and Asgore, Sans really wanted to know), but their genuine love and respect for each other.  He hadn’t expected much out of his marriage: friendship, and preferably attraction, but that was it.  He’d gotten lucky, he told Frisk as often as he could.

Of course, she declared that  _ she _ was the lucky one.  The geas that had been cast on her when she’d been kidnapped had bound her to conceal her identity through any means possible.  She’d been told it was unbreakable.  Gerson - the magic tutor - had been alarmed when she revealed this him.  Between the illusion magic and the way she was concealing her magical signature, she’d been close to burning out altogether and falling into a state of magical exhaustion.  She would’ve died, he told Sans one evening.  This was then followed by grave warnings to take care of his wife that left Sans blushing, but the heavy feeling in his soul remained.

So many little things could have gone differently in their lives.  His father could have lived through the war, and he wouldn’t have had any reason to travel to Middlefield Abbey that day.  Frisk could have been killed by the bandits that kidnapped her.  Sans could have killed that human soldier before Papyrus noticed the altercation, and they wouldn’t have had to live in Snowdin to avoid scrutiny for war crimes.  She could have gotten lost; he could have given up and gone home.  It was all too easy to imagine a world where they would never have met.

Frisk just smiled when he told her this in a fit of nerves right before their wedding ceremony.  She took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him on the forehead.  “I’m glad I found you, Sans,” she said, “No matter how unlikely it was.  We are going to have a wonderful, crazy life together.”

That memory made a grin bloom on Sans’s face one morning, a few weeks after their wedding.  They’d been given a reprieve from traveling for a few months, to allow him to work through some tricky cases and give the newlyweds a chance to settle in.  And of course - as people kept teasing him - to potentially get started on that army of kids Frisk wanted.

It was quiet still, the early light filtering through the window of their bedroom.  He knew even before he was fully awake that Frisk was gone, but he knew where to find her.

Slowly, he changed into his day clothes, neatly folded by either Papyrus or Frisk (they kept fighting over who got to do chores, which amused him to no end).  He was technically a noble now, as Royal Judge, but he frequently dressed in a plain tunic and undertunic anyways.  It helped him blend in a little.  Papyrus always kicked up a fuss about that, but Frisk helped him hide his casual clothing from his brother’s cleaning rampages.

Their home was on the edge of the merchants’ district, far enough away to miss most of the shouting and traffic of the market while still being within easy walking distance.  Frisk did most of the shopping for their household herself and was friends with most of the vendors in town.  It was too early for that, though.

Instead, he started up the road towards the castle.

The barracks where the Royal Guard was quartered sat located inside the castle wall, but behind the castle proper.  There was a training field there, separated from the fine gardens by a neatly trimmed hedge.  That was where Undyne led her morning exercises.

Sans sauntered onto the training field just as the exercises for the trainees were finishing up.  Undyne didn’t acknowledge him, but he knew she had spotted him.  He sat on a bench that had been set up for visitors and watched his brother and his wife.

They were working on swordfighting.  The trainees had weighted wooden swords and were practicing different types of swings against stuffed dummies, learning to control the direction and power of their strikes.  The second, he knew, was especially important for humans like Frisk; with enough force or intent to harm, she could accidentally dust someone even in a practice session.

It was also important for monsters like Papyrus, who had gained EXP or LV.  Sans hadn’t had the heart to tell his brother what had happened with the human that day long ago, much to Undyne’s dismay, but she’d reluctantly agreed to help him break the news.  Eventually.  She was as susceptible to Papyrus’s good charm as he was, and no one wanted to be the one to break his innocence.

A loud clap brought him back to reality: Undyne was dismissing the trainees.  “GUARDS!  TWENTY LAPS AROUND THE BARRACKS AND MEET ME BACK HERE FOR COMBAT DRILLS!  TRAINEES, CLEAN UP THIS MESS!”

The gathered soldiers gave shouts of assent and scrambled to obey.

“TRAINEE FRISK!  GO TAKE CARE OF YOUR HUSBAND!”

There was a chorus of snickers from the other trainees, but Frisk just dumped her load of wooden swords into the arms of a rather burly human man and jogged over to the bench.

“Hey,” she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.  “I didn’t think you’d be up this early.”

“and miss watching you train?  even a lazybones like me can get up for that.”

She laughed.  “You’re so silly.  Maybe I’ll run away and join the Royal Guard instead of being a fine lady.”

“looks like you already have.”  He scooted over to let her sit down.  She smelled awful after hours of intense workout, but he leaned into her anyways.

“Hah!  No, Undyne won’t let me actually join the Guard, y’know.  As a noblewoman I can’t be sent out to fight or patrol or anything; I’d be useless to them.  But if trouble comes to our house, I’m determined to be able to meet it.”

He reached up to cup her cheek and gave her a peck on the lips.  “i love you so much.”

“Eeew,” Undyne said, walking up, “You take that lovey-dovey stuff off my training field.”

“you got it.”

“Wait-”

But he’d already scooped his wife up bridal style and stepped through a shortcut back home.

“I think she was trying to say something,” Frisk said, laughing as she bobbed behind him in midair.  The grin on her face said she didn’t really mind; she’d gotten used to his shortcuts, and he’d gotten used to using them more often.  It made travel easier.

“she can tell it to paps.”

“Hah.  I’m trying to stay on her good side, Sans.  I really want to keep practicing with her.”

“she’ll let you keep practicing as long as you want to.  she likes paps too much to say ‘no’ to him, and he thinks the world of you.”

He tapped the pipe end that sat in their kitchen, jumping a little when a burst of water came flooding out.  This whole...idea of moving water through pipes was genius, but the magic and the physical structures necessary were a bit faulty.  When it worked it certainly made filling a tub easier, though.

“have you eaten breakfast yet?” he asked, letting her down.

She threw off her smelly training clothes and jumped in the tub.  “Yep, I ate with Paps before we left.  You?”

“nope.”

“Well, grab something while I wash and then we can go to the market.”

He ate a bread roll and some ale, the quickest breakfast he could find, but Frisk was already done with her bath and dressed by the time he finished.

“Alright.  Ready?”

“ready.”

He took her hand, just like he had done so many times over the past year.

“hey,”

“Hmm?”

“have i told you i love you yet today?”

She laughed, but her cheek were pink.  “I don’t think so, no.”

“i love you, ‘walker.’”

“And I love you, Sans of Snowdin Forest.”

Hand in hand, they walked out into New Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! The only note I have on this chapter is that the capital city of Eastriver, "Joyadelmar," comes from the phrase "joya del mar." Unless I'm very much mistaken, this means "jewel of the sea" in Spanish. I don't use Spanish on a daily basis anymore, but Google corroborates this. Thanks, Google.
> 
> Speaking of which, a huge "Thank You" to everyone who read this story and left kudos and reviews! They really do mean a lot to me. I write for fun, but it's the feedback from all you lovely people that encourages me to post my humble little stories here.
> 
> This story was supposed to be a one-shot originally. Several of the stories I'm currently working on were supposed to be one-shots. Lately, my writing process has been:
> 
> Brain: Look at this neat idea!  
> Me: Yeah, that looks wonderful! Let me type that up.
> 
> _30 pages later..._
> 
> Brain: And then we can add a PLOT TWIST!  
> Me: ...I'll divide this into chapters.
> 
> It's an ongoing struggle.
> 
> I will be taking a short break from posting while I figure out what to post next, but I'm trying to get my novel-length story ready to go. It's been a work in progress for longer than I've been posting stories here, and I really want to share it. I don't want to post something unfinished, though. Decisions, decisions...


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